Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
“They’re all fine. Sergeant Neville told me that Elianna used some of her potion to heal the minor injuries they got during the escape. The draugrs apparently tried to avoid hurting the horses.”
I laugh. “Even monsters have their soft sides. Do you … do you want to walk with me?”
He nods, and we fall into step, strolling down the road. Away from the inn, away from the musicians, and past the sleeping village.
“I need to apologize. For earlier. Talking about you like you weren’t there. I find myself bristling whenever Trick tells me what I should do when it comes to you.”
“What?” It’s like he’s speaking ancient Altarran. I hear sounds, but the words don’t make sense.
He grins at me. “Sometimes I forget you’re so—”
“Reasonable? Female? Not drowning in manly, bullheaded belligerence?”
“No,” he says through gritted teeth, his grin gone. “Yes. Okay, yes. Reasonable. I’m having such a hard time being reasonable about you. It sets something inside me on fire that you can be so unaffected by me.”
“Unaffected? Are you kidding? Unaffected? I can’t take a single step without considering whether it will turn you hot or cold, on or off.
You affect me constantly. Anyway, never mind.
I’m fine.” I raise my chin. “I’m not a child you need to teach about the world.
You’re not even the only man I’ve ever kissed. ”
With that, I speed up my steps, leaving him gaping behind me. And I’m petty enough to be delighted.
When he catches up, he slants a narrow-eyed glance down at me. “So. Who did you kiss? Was it Trick?”
I stop walking and put my hands on my hips. “No! We’re just friends. But anyway, that’s none of your business, Prince Kaelen. Unless you want to tell me the names of all the women in the palace you’ve kissed?”
“Not really,” he mutters.
“Not really,” I repeat, deepening my voice to imitate him. “This is a ridiculous conversation. Maybe we should just go back to the inn and—”
The amulet glows, interrupting my thoughts completely.
“Oh, no. What do we do? I can’t explain the ‘special glowy necklace’ without giving us away.” I put my hand over the locket, but the light shines through my fingers.
“Why is it doing that? Are we in danger? Are wolves about to show up?” Kaelen smiles at me, despite his obvious concern.
“Better than Artemisen herself, right here in the middle of town. We need to get moving. Fast.”
Luckily, we’re almost at the edge of town. We speed up until we’re out of sight of the village, and then I pull the locket and key from beneath my shirt and hold them out in front of me.
“What do you want, um, Lady Artemisen?” I realize I have no idea how to address the goddess who sometimes uses my mouth to speak. But it doesn’t matter, because she doesn’t respond.
Instead, the amulet’s light focuses into a single beam that aims out into the burned fields that border the road.
“Great. Are we supposed to go in there?” I sigh, then realize I’ve become far too comfortable with the possession of a goddess. I’m more worried about my clean clothes getting dirty than I am about what the amulet is up to this time.
“Let’s check.” Kaelen grasps my shoulders and gently turns me to face back toward the village.
The gem’s beam immediately shifts to point again at the same field, now on my left. “Guess that answers that.”
“We should walk out there,” he says, and I waste a moment wishing I had his confidence, instead of second-guessing my every move.
“Sure, let’s do it,” I say with no enthusiasm whatsoever.
“Hey, cheer up. What’s the worst that can happen?”
I slap a hand over his mouth, but it’s too late. The cursed words are out there in the air between us for anyone to hear. Too late to take back.
“You never say that,” I whisper. “Never, ever. It’s like you’re daring fate to smack you in the head.”
He takes my hand in his. “Maybe let’s just go, before we scare ourselves out of it.”
“Like you’re ever scared of anything,” I mutter.
“You’d be surprised,” he says dryly. “Especially lately.”
Keeping hold of my hand, he starts into the field. I reluctantly follow, the burned plants cracking and snapping beneath our boots.
The light from the amulet intensifies as we walk until I have to shade my eyes against it. “Okay, okay, but what do you want?”
Neither the gem nor the goddess answers me in words, but the beam of light stops pointing into the distance and shifts to aim at the ground in front of my feet.
“I have no idea what’s happening,” I say, turning in a circle to look around. “What is important about this spot?”
Kaelen shakes his head. But I see his hand is on the hilt of his sword, and his body is rigid with tension as he scans every direction for potential threats.
“Ow!” The amulet suddenly weighs so much that my neck can’t hold it up. I try to pull the chain, which is digging painfully into my skin, over my head, but can’t lift it. “Help, Kaelen! The amulet—something happened!”
But he doesn’t understand what I mean. Before I can explain, the weight pulls me down off my feet. I drop into a kneeling position on the ground, bent over so far, I’m afraid I’ll smash my face into the soot of the burned plants.
“I guess it wants us to be down here,” I manage, breathing hard, but before I can think of what to do next, the weight vanishes, and I can sit back up, rolling my neck in relief at the cessation of punishing pressure. “But why—”
I stop speaking when my fingers begin to glow.
My fingers are glowing.
“Uh, Kaelen?”
“I see it,” he says. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I can definitely see it.”
An overwhelming sensation of warmth suffuses my body, and I suddenly, somehow, know what to do.
I throw my hands out to my sides and turn my face up to the sky, still kneeling right there in the ruined field.
The glow spreads from my fingers to my arms and up to my shoulders.
Then it washes through me, and I can tell from Kaelen’s awed expression that even my face is glowing.
I see my reflection in his eyes, which shine purple ringed with gold, and I’m …
glowing. Even the strands of my hair are shimmering with golden light.
My ability to handle this level of surreal is nowhere near strong enough.
“What’s happening to me?” If I’m going to die, I guess death by warm glow is better than immolation, but the result will be the same, and I’m not sure my corpse will be any happier for the gentleness of its demise.
Before the prince can answer me, I gasp, because the energy—the massive amount of power—of the amulet sears through me until it bursts from my fingertips in the shape of golden swaths of light that illuminate the fields as they travel over them.
I cry out, and Kaelen reaches out to touch me or hold me or help me, I don’t know which, but the light knocks him flat.
He jumps back up immediately and crouches in front of me.
“Soli,” Kaelen says quietly. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” I gasp. “But it’s probably not a good idea to touch me right now.”
“I can touch you later?” His smile might make me think wicked thoughts if I didn’t know he was trying to distract me from my impending death.
Then I can’t talk at all, only feel, and what I feel is immense power—the vast, amorphous shape of it, hovering over me as if afraid to channel itself through me. As if the power is far too much for a mere mortal to bear.
“Please, no more,” I cry out.
With one last surge, the light blazes into an inferno of sparkling golden ribbons, and then it vanishes, leaving me bereft. Kaelen is on me the moment the light fades, wrapping his strong arms around me. When I look up into his huge, dark eyes, I can only think of one thing to say.
“Now,” I say. “Touch me now.”