Chapter 22
As they ascended the stairs, Magdala tried again to picture Asherton as king, sitting on the throne in Largotia, far from this rainy island and his greenhouses.
Perhaps what she meant to do to him was cruel, but was standing aside and watching him take the throne worse?
Abdicating would be good for him. He could never be king, with his bare feet and tousled hair and dirty hands.
And there were plenty of other muggy, rainy islands for him to adopt like a pet.
“This house used to belong to a Russuli family,” he said carelessly.
Magdala’s eyelids fluttered. “Did it?” she asked tightly.
“Yes. He was evicted by my father. What was his name? Seamus … something …”
Magdala held her breath. It had been fifteen years since her father left Elegy. Surely, Asherton didn’t remember her father’s name. Surely, he hadn’t recognized it on the letter.
“Oh, I can’t recall. Seamus … something. Anyway, he deserved it.”
Magdala’s blood boiled. “He was probably just a Russuli landholder who your father displaced because he wanted the island for you.”
Asherton considered this a moment, then said, “No, I recall hearing about it. He refused to pay his taxes.”
“Because King Tiernan taxed the Russuli unfairly.”
“Everyone else can pay their taxes—why not this fellow? By the way, can you cut me a slice of cheese, Mags? I’m starving.”
“Get it yourself,” Magdala said, terse.
“But you have to taste it, too, so there’s no point in me getting up, crossing the room, cutting a piece, giving it to you to bite, and then taking it myself, is there?”
Magdala resented his logic, but he was right. She lifted the knife and found her hand was shaking.
“This Seamus fellow was dreadful at upkeeping the house,” Asherton said as Magdala sliced into the block of cheese.
The knife was sharp, and it cut cleanly through the hard rind and into the soft cream beneath.
“The drains never work, and the roof leaks.” He smiled at her innocently and said, with precision, “He must have been an untidy person.”
Magdala gripped the knife until her hand squeaked on the handle. She was a steaming kettle, ready to burst.
“You seem negligible at self-defense,” she said, needing to distract him before the kettle boiled over. “How did you ever manage to kill someone the size of Julian?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “And my self-defense is fine.” He bent over the washbasin and splashed water on his face, then mussed his hair with a towel.
Magdala glanced away. She was angry with him, so why was she imagining digging her fingers into his damp locks, the smell of cedar and lye on his skin? His rough hand on her cheeks …
“Let’s see what that military school education did for you,” she said. She drew her knife, turning it between her fingers; it spun in a shining blur.
He narrowed his eyes. “Why right now?”
“Why not right now?”
“You’ve been here nearly five days and never a word about sparring until now. Why?”
“Because when I got here, I expected a prince to be competent and trained, not … whatever the hell this is.” She gestured to his rumpled clothes and dripping hair and pretended that he wasn’t more handsome for it. Pretended so well, she almost believed it herself.
Asherton took his own knife from under his pillow—she hadn’t realized he kept it there—and held it in a reverse grip.
Magdala smiled. “Is that the best you can do?”
“Why don’t you try me and find out?”
She charged him, her teeth bared in a fierce grin, and slashed at his arm.
He dodged, spinning behind her and catching a handful of her shirt.
She fell to her knees as he slid forward, yanking her against him, his legs pressing into her back below her shoulder blades.
She looked up at him, her head touching his stomach.
“Is that the best you can do?” he hissed.
Magdala’s lips curled in, her nostrils flared, and she slammed her knife down into the floor. He jumped aside as the blade scratched the arch of his foot.
“That’s why you wear shoes!” she yelled, spinning and slashing her blade across his leg. Her aim was precise—she could have severed his femoral artery—but she pulled back at the last instant, only cutting his trousers. He let out a bark of laughter. “Did you lose your nerve?”
“Predict my next strike,” she cried. “Block me!” She threw herself at him, her knife whistling past his chest. He backed up, dodging but not blocking. Her blows sped, faster and more frantic. Anger speckled her vision red. “YOU’RE NOT TRYING!” she roared.
He slid under her arm, caught her elbow, and flipped her cleanly over his leg. She landed on her back, her blade behind his knee. He pressed his knife against her throat. “I cut your artery and you cut mine. Aren’t we both clever?”
Shoving her away, he took a few backward strides. She was upon him in a blink, her blade under his jaw. His knife pricked her under her left breast.
Her heart was a bird beating against its cage. Her blood sang in her temples, and for the first time since she’d run over the downs in her bare feet, Magdala felt alive.
He was beautiful and erratic, wild as a fox. He reflected a lost piece of her own spirit back to her. She envied him.
With an airy laugh, he lowered the knife and wound his arm around her back, pulled her against his chest. His breath tickled her lips. “Kiss me or kill me,” he murmured. “Make up your mind.”
She leaned closer, her lips brushing his. “I don’t want to do either,” she said against his mouth.
“Is the knife at my throat for decoration, then? Enough games, Magdala. What are you going to do?”
What was she going to do? She promised herself that it was his anger that thrilled her, not her name on his tongue. Not the golden glint in his eyes.
“I’m not playing games,” she said.
He shoved her back and she laughed. “You’re so paranoid!”
“If you’re going to kill me, then bloody do it!” he shouted.
“I’m not trying to kill you, idiot! I’m your bodyguard!”
“There wasn’t anyone in the hedge maze but us! There isn’t any way on or off this island without being seen, and how could an assassin get into this room to plant the Lucent Pine sap? You have to be the assassin because if it’s not you, it’s Zephyr—and Zephyr would never hurt me.”
“It wasn’t me!”
“Then how? How did they get into this room? It has to be you!”
From the corner, Anton whimpered, curled up behind a curtain.
“I don’t know,” Magdala said, her voice trembling. “I don’t know how they escaped.”
“Because they didn’t! You told me yourself you’re friends with Huxley, that you knew Julian. He paid you to mess with my mind and then have me killed by some ‘accident’, didn’t he?”
“I’m not trying to kill you, you lunatic! If I were, I would have done it by now!”
“You tried!”
“I didn’t try! Not that I don’t want to try twenty hours of the day!”
He laughed bitterly. “Oh, really? And what is it I do that fills you with these murderous desires?”
“For one, you’re slovenly.”
“I am not slovenly,” he retorted. “I am … organic.”
“So is a pile of skat, but we still don’t bring that into the house, do we?”
He advanced on her, his face alight. Magdala’s rage rose to meet his, hot and burning, full of desire for his spirit, and his house, and something else she wouldn’t admit to herself …
“And what makes you so much better than me, Devney? What makes you worthy of looking down your nose at the future king of Allagesh?”
Magdala snorted. She needed to say something that would make him back away from her.
He was drawing too close, and she was liking him too much.
“And how are you going to find time to be king when you have frog ponds to propagate and moles to dig out of the soil? Are you going to go to balls all covered in dirt? Will you wear shoes to your coronation?”
Asherton lifted one eyebrow. “I didn't think you were the kind of woman who cared about those things.”
This knocked her back a step. “I’m not … but the people are. And that’s why they don’t respect you.”
“The people,” he said, his voice louder and harsher with each word, “do not respect me because I am a bastard. They do not respect me because of who my father was and because a mad woman brought down a fake curse on me. I would think, being the child of a Russuli, that you would understand.”
Magdala did not like his reasoning. She did not like that he was right. She did not like the growing conviction that he was the hero of this story, and she the villain. “The people hate you because you don’t act like a king.”
“Would you rather I acted like a king? Should I ignore you when you’re in the room, stomp about in satin and velvet while I destroy the island so it will look expensive and pretty? So it will make me look wealthy? Is that what you want?”
A whimper distracted her. Anton was sitting on the floor at her feet, his leaves wrapped around her leg.
“We shouldn’t fight in front of Anton,” she said. “It scares him.”
“You started it,” Asherton mumbled.
“No, you started it when you accused me of trying to assassinate you.”
“No, you started it when you held a knife to my throat!”
“And you held a knife to mine!” she cried.
“Because you’re trying to kill me!”
“I AM NOT TRYING TO KILL YOU!”
“YOU’RE FRIGHTENING THE PLANT!” he roared.
“YOU’RE A CHILD!”
Asherton backed away, his hands up. “We will discuss this when you’re in a calmer state of mind.”
“Don’t walk away from me!” Magdala called after him. He shook his head and walked to the door. Furious, Magdala grabbed a pillow from the bed and hurled it at him. It struck his shoulders and he stopped short, then turned slowly toward her.
“Do I need to remind you, Devney, that I could have you fired?”
“I wish you would!” Magdala said, snatching another pillow. “Then I wouldn’t have to clean up after you anymore! I wouldn’t have to care for your stupid plants!”
“Stop it, you’ll hurt Anton’s feelings!”
“HE’S A PLANT! And you’re a bad influence on him!” She hit him so hard with the next pillow that he stumbled into the doorframe. She took another, but he crossed the room in two long strides, caught it, and wrenched it from her hands.
“I’m getting sick of you,” he said.
“Likewise!”
Magdala retreated to the bed to arm herself and he chased her, brandishing his pillow.
Magdala grabbed another, shielding herself as he slammed his into her.
She gripped it and tugged, jerking him forward.
Off-balance from the swing, he tumbled onto the bed and she attacked, pummeling him.
Feathers snowed down on them, dusting her shoulders and catching in her hair.
Forced onto the defensive, Asherton covered his face and, exultant, flushed with victory, Magdala climbed on top of him.
“Witch!” he cried. He clutched her wrists in one hand, then yanked, and she fell with a shriek onto his chest. He wound his other arm around her back, pinning her against his chest. “You’re a vicious creature, aren’t you?” he said.
Magdala was suddenly aware of her body—her legs entangled with his legs, her chest touching his chest, her red hair curling into his dark hair.
She was so near him, she could only see his lovely eyes, like sun-kissed moss.
A powerful tugging behind her breastbone pulled her downward, until her lips brushed his again.
She drew a shaky breath and tilted her head.
He smelled of cedar and fresh soil, just as she’d imagined he would. His hair was damp, and she wanted to bury her fingers in it. She wanted to run her hands over the taut muscles in his shoulders and back, and feel his smooth skin …
A door slammed somewhere down the hall, and reality struck her like an icy wave.
Magdala sat up suddenly, still straddling him.
Asherton lay still, staring breathlessly up at her.
His pupils were black pools, his lips parted.
Magdala scrambled off of him like he was venomous and crossed the room, pushing her hair behind her ears.
“Magdala, I …” he began, but she practically ran for the door.
“I need to go and inspect the grounds,” she said. “In case there’s another assassin.”
Blundering out the door, Magdala rushed through the corridor, down the steps, and out into the rainy garden. Anton had followed her and skipped along contentedly in the grass.
She felt as though she’d stumbled into a hall of mirrors, as if, when she tried to run for safety, she walked had face-first into a wall of glass.
Asherton was beautiful, and she was a young woman who had never been with a man.
It was only logical that she wanted him.
That he drew her to him with his taut physique and loose curly hair and eyes that reminded her of the hills in the Wildlands she missed so much.
But he wasn’t home and he never would be.
She’d be crazy not to want to kiss him, but she never could.
But Magdala knew with a rising dread that if Asherton was short with blond hair or tall and red-headed or built like a barrel, she’d still feel this tug behind her ribs, still hear the call of him in her soul.
Because it wasn’t his beauty; it was that piece of her old self she saw in him.
That flame that had smothered slowly in her father’s cottage in Owlbright, and in training with Huxley, and in each dull court gathering and ball until it flickered out and died.
Asherton still had that fire, and she wanted its heat to burn her cheeks. And maybe, if she lingered near him, a spark from his flame would catch her dry kindling.
“Curse you, stupid, stupid girl,” she growled, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. She ran to the greenhouse and shut herself inside, sitting by a copper basin overgrown with oleander and fern.
He would make a terrible king. He would ruin the country, just like her father said.
It was a mercy to force him to abdicate.
She had been doing this for her father, but perhaps she was doing it for Asherton, too.
Again, she reminded herself that he could find another house, one with new ponds and greenhouses.
But as she looked around at the rain-streaked glass walls, she could no longer imagine anyone but Asherton on Elegy Island.