Chapter 5 Esther
Esther
How to sort out feelings: panic quietly, loudly, or somewhere in between.
The ground was cold and unyielding beneath her, damp seeping through her sleeves.
But her face…
Her face rested on something warm, smelling of vanilla and moss.
She wondered if Lucy had crawled into her bed again, unbecoming of a maid, but they never acted like master and servant when no extra eyes were around.
“You’re so warm. I love it,” Esther murmured, wrapping her arms around her friend.
“Finally awake, Princess?”
That was not Lucy’s voice. It was deep and smooth, like silk.
She bolted upright, her head colliding with something firm.
“Ow!” She clutched the back of her head.
“Holy, you broke my nose,” the elf, Nythir, grumbled, holding his bloodied face.
It was then she realized she was on top of the overly attractive elf.
Again.
She couldn’t believe it. She, esteemed princess of Valedara, had straddled a man who was not her husband.
Twice.
She squeaked and skittered backward. The fire snapped in alarm beside her. Sparks leapt upward, too high, too bright.
Her magic flinched awake.
Pebbles near her feet rattled. A tiny flame on the log twisted upward, growing taller, as if trying to console her.
“Oh no,” she whispered. “Not again, stop, stop!”
The world blurred.
Burnt meat.
Ash on the wind.
A scream. Her’s. Theirs’. She couldn’t tell.
And then came the worst truth of all:
“I’m a murderer,” she choked out. “I killed them. I killed them, and it wasn’t even on purpose.”
In the palace, danger had always been hypothetical, something spoken of in council rooms or tediously annotated in her tutors’ scrolls. Heroes in her novels defeated enemies with elegant swordplay or morally convenient unconsciousness. They didn’t… explode people.
In the garden, she used to imagine adventures, freedom, daring rescues. Not this. Not scorched earth, severed limbs, and the metallic taste of power she never wanted. She felt the bile rise in her throat.
Her mother had been graceful with magic, gentle even at her fiercest. Esther had inherited none of that control, only the raw, wild force of a golden flame that answered her fear with violence.
She wrapped her arms around herself.
What if this was all she was?
A disaster in royal silk, now without even the silk.
A memory flashed: Lucy tugging her into a closet to gossip, Lucy stealing pastries for her, Lucy promising she’d never let Esther be alone.
Lucy would never forgive her for this.
She bit her lip until it hurt.
“Hey,” Nythir said gently. His voice felt strange in the quiet, too loud, too human. “Breathe. You’re all right.”
He approached slowly, like she was a trapped animal.
Every tutor Esther had ever had warned her that uncontrolled magic could corrupt the heart. But none had explained how to handle guilt. No one told her how to breathe after the first time magic didn’t save, it destroyed.
There was no etiquette lesson for this.
No elegant script for apologizing to the dead.
Her gaze flicked to him, unfocused and wet. “I didn’t mean to,” she whispered.
“I know.”
He knelt but didn’t touch her. Even at arm’s length, he could feel the poison of her guilt.
“Are you upset about turning the bandits into… confetti?” Lyssara asked. “You shouldn’t be.”
“Confetti?” Esther echoed weakly.
“They had a warrant.” Lyssara held a crumpled parchment inches from Esther’s face.
WANTED
Dead or Alive
Multiple murders, theft, extortion…
“Wanted posters actually exist?”
“Did you seriously just ask that?” Lyssara gaped. “These were posted in every tavern and inn for fifty miles!”
“That is so cool,” Esther whispered in awe. “So… they were really bad?”
“The worst,” Nythir chuckled.
“So I’m basically a hero?” Esther popped up.
“Something like that.” Lyssara ruffled her hair. “You did good, kid.”
Esther gawked at them, eyes wide like an owl. She didn’t feel right taking lives so easily. But as she read their misdeeds on the wanted poster… she felt strangely at ease with what she had done.
“She really did a number on your nose,” Vorrik laughed.
“Your commentary is not required,” Nythir grumbled.
“Oh my stars, I should have healed you!” Esther panicked, tossing the parchment aside.
“No—” He raised a hand.
Too late.
Golden light washed over him.
“Nythir!” Vorrik screamed.
“Hold,” Lyssara commanded.
“Still in one piece,” Nythir said as gold slid off his body like glitter. He tapped his perfectly straight nose.
“And not confetti,” Lyssara added.
“I told you I could fix it,” Esther said smugly.
Rustle. Rustle.
A half-decayed squirrel burst from the leaves.
Esther screamed.
Vorrik stomped it.
The eyeball landed on Lyssara’s shoulder.
Then Lyssara puked. Then Esther. Then both again.
“She murders, heals, necromances, and sets things on fire,” Nythir wheezed.
“And we need you to light the fire again,” Lyssara wiped her mouth and gestured toward the fire pit.
“Absolutely not,” Esther said through heaves.
Vorrik leaned in close. “When Nythir stands near you, the fire flares.”
“That’s because I’m handsome,” Nythir murmured, leaning in a little too close.
The fire popped. Esther stared at the group in confused contempt. They had used Nythir’s face against her as a fire starter.
Later, she sat on a log beside the flames, wrapped in a borrowed cloak and a blanket of exhaustion. The forest buzzed with night magic, small flame-moths flickered through the air, drawn toward her, mistaking her golden sparks for a broodmother.
A tiny creature with ember-tipped ears approached her boot, sniffed, then bowed.
“Why, why is it doing that?” she whispered.
“It thinks you’re a fire deity,” Nythir said casually.
Esther made a noise somewhere between a sob and a groan.
Lyssara crossed her arms. “Right. Rules. If you’re traveling with us, you follow the Adventurer Code.”
“The what?”
Vorrik unrolled a scroll. “Rule one: don’t die.”
“Rule two,” Lyssara added, “don’t kill us.”
“Rule three: if you have to explode something, give notice,” Vorrik said.
Nythir hummed thoughtfully. “Rule four: maybe don’t straddle strangers.”
Esther turned scarlet. “That was, AN ACCIDENT!”
“And finally,” Lyssara said, “who are you?”
“Essie,” she whispered, thinking of her mother’s voice calling her that on warm afternoons.
“And the symbol on your cloak?”
Esther froze.
She slowly lifted the cloak from her lap and stared at the phoenix sigil.
Her heart cracked.
In one motion, she tore it off and hurled it into the fire.
“What cloak?” she said, maintaining perfect royal composure.
The orange thread curled and dissolved like a dying sun.
“Do you even know how much that was worth?” Vorrik whispered.
Esther swallowed the hollow ache in her chest.
“No,” she said.
And she didn’t care.
The flames reflected in Nythir’s eyes as he watched her, amused, impressed, and far too handsome for someone who could so thoroughly shatter her emotional stability.
When he smiled at her like trouble incarnate, she wondered, just faintly, if Lucy would consider it stupid to die, if the cause was a devilish smile.