Chapter 25
Magdala awoke to footsteps on the bedroom floor. With a gasp, she snatched her shotfire from under her pillow and lunged at the intruder. Her arm was across their throat, and the shotfire barrel pressed between their eyes before she realized it was Zephyr.
Tangled in the covers like he’d wrestled them and lost, Asherton mumbled, “It’s barely dawn. Just let them murder me, for mercy's sake.”
Zephyr stared back at her, his eyes wide and the tea tray dripping camfe on the carpet. “Very good,” he said, his shock resolving into a paternal smile.
“Why wasn’t the door locked?” Magdala snapped, stepping back and sinking onto her cot. She felt unusually irritable, like Zephyr had come in the room specifically to annoy her. “I locked it before I went to sleep.”
Her hair had come out of the braid in the night and fell around her shoulders in perfect coils, upsettingly soft and smelling of cedar. She wanted to bind it in a tight knot atop her head where she couldn’t see it or smell it.
Asherton yawned and sat up, stretching. “I got up in the night and went down to the kitchen to …”
“NO!” she exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “Did you not listen to a single thing I said last night?”
Asherton glanced guiltily at Zephyr. “I’d rather you didn’t mention our conversation last night,” he whispered to her.
“Then stop being impossible,” she hissed.
“I can’t spend my whole life cooped up in my room.”
Magdala wanted to hit him. She wanted to get her hands around his throat and throttle him. She wanted to press her lips against his and feel his rough hands on her back and inhale his scent …
He took a teacup from the tray and lifted it to his lips. Magdala slapped it out of his hand, and it shattered on the floor.
Zephyr let out a yelp of horror and covered his mouth with his hands. “That was seven centuries old.”
Magdala winced. “I’m sorry, Zeph.”
“No, it’s fine,” he said, his voice shrill. “It’s just, the clay used to make it doesn’t exist anymore.”
“I’m so sorry …”
“And the berries in the glaze have gone extinct. But it’s alright. It’s fine.” He bent down and gathered the pieces, sniffling.
Asherton tried to reach for the tray, but Magdala picked it up and took it with her to her cot. Without breaking eye contact, she took a bite of his roll, his eggs, his apple. Each one she chewed and swallowed deliberately.
He sighed. “Dying yet?”
“It’s very good. You’ll enjoy it.”
“Less now that it’s been half devoured.”
Magdala shot him a cutting look. “Hyperbole does not become you, Your Highness.”
“And that scowl doesn’t become you, yet here we both are, indifferent.”
“The scowl is genetic,” Magdala retorted.
“And so is my hyperbole." He gazed at her for a long moment. “Your hair looks nice.”
Magdala took another huge bite of his roll.
“Never mind, it looks hideous,” he cried. “Give me my breakfast!”
Zephyr sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ve heard from your mother in Largotia, and she won’t be sending a guard for the coronation.”
Magdala nearly dropped the roll. “What? Does she not remember what happened last time Ash was in Largotia?”
“I think that’s rather the point, Mags,” Asherton said grimly.
She looked at Zephyr in helpless panic. “Then we’ll hire a private guard.”
“We can’t trust them,” Zephyr said. “Every corner of Largotia and most of the royal guard is corrupted. You know that.”
She did know that. If Asherton attempted to travel to the capitol for the coronation, he would be lucky if his coach made it to the palace gates. “We can’t …” She studied him. He gazed back, grave-eyed and quiet.
“It’s alright,” he said at length. “We’ll get through it.”
She felt like someone had pulled a rug from under her feet. He couldn’t be king. It was madness. He was too irreverent and irresponsible, and if the queen wouldn’t give him the proper guard, then how on earth was she to protect him at the coronation?
But if Asherton admitted to killing Julian, he could abdicate, and she would turn down the house, stay with him here in exile and obscurity.
Whether or not he’d killed Julian was irrelevant—Julian deserved it—but she couldn’t endure the terror of taking him to Largotia, facing a mob with torches and pitchforks.
It was best for everyone—Asherton, Zephyr, even Seamus, if he was forced to abdicate.
She kept looking at him with growing dread, like he was a beloved, breakable thing balanced on the edge of a shelf. And when she caught him gazing back at her, she saw her fear mirrored in his eyes. He was just as worried about her.
She needed to keep her wits. He was the crown prince of Allagesh and she was just his bodyguard, and he would almost certainly fire her after what she was about to do.
Magdala shot out of her chair. “We need to train.”
Asherton looked sadly at his food. “Now?”
“Every day,” she said briskly. “The coronation will be dangerous.”
He pulled his sleeping shirt off and tossed it in the basket.
His shoulders were spattered with freckles, which she’d found strange when she met him, but now they made her think of a constellation of stars, or the speckles on a robin’s egg.
She saw the beauty in everything he did—and she wanted to take the fractured pieces in his heart and bind them like a wound.
“Do you think I’m handsome, Mags?” Asherton asked. His voice cut into her thoughts, and she realized she was staring. Her cheeks heated and she glanced away.
“No,” she lied.
“Then why are you staring at me?”
“I’m paid to stare at you.”
He huffed a laugh. “Not like that.”
That was enough. She couldn’t take any more of him and this alien longing snaking through her ribs like a bramble on a trellis.
“I’ll meet you in the ballroom,” she said and rushed out.
Once the door had slammed behind her, she leaned against the wall, panting.
He would be so angry at her. He would say she betrayed him.
Asherton had held her hair while she vomited in the grass, lent her his soap, braided her tangled locks.
He didn’t deserve this, but he didn’t deserve to die either.
It was like cutting off a limb to stop the spread of infection—a necessary agony.
Her stomach soured as she ran down the stairs. She was doing this for him, to save him.
Magdala’s footsteps echoed in the empty ballroom.
Sweat shone on her brow and she tightened her lips into a thin line as she took the vial of amenite from her pocket, drew her knife, spat on the blade, and poured the whole contents of the vial into the spit.
With the tip of her finger, she mixed it into a paste and spread it down the steel. It dried invisible.
No more procrastination, no more second guesses. It was now or never.
The mural on the walls depicted an amethyst dragon curling through an apricot orchard, its scales shining against the dark green leaves.
Birds hopped in the branches, teal-blue wings flapping, bright beaks reaching for golden fruit.
A chaotic scene, the backdrop of many chaotic nights.
The energy of the room matched her swirling panic.
Magdala imagined Asherton’s rage, how he would shout, how he would fling her betrayal in her face.
But she was doing this for him. To save his life.
Because his brother was dead, wasn’t he?
So couldn’t the curse be real? And if it was, this was the only way to protect him and, in the end, love and hate and Huxley and her father’s royalists could all go to Roz’s nest because protecting him was her duty. And Magdala knew about duty.
Asherton sauntered through the doorway and stopped in the center of the ballroom, searching for her. Framed by gold and grandeur, he should have looked dingy—but he didn’t. Magdala almost believed he had stepped out of the mural, a shard of wild magic broken from its source.
Asherton took a cutlass and slashed the air with it; it whistled menacingly. Magdala stepped out from the shadows, and he started.
“You wicked little cat,” he cried. “Where were you hiding?”
Magdala frowned. She needed to steel her heart. He was her friend, and friends did what was best for one another.
“I prefer knives,” she said.
He set down the cutlass. “I know you do.”
“To first blood?”
Asherton smirked at her. “Oh Mags, don’t be such a flirt.”
She tossed him a knife—a light, gleaming little thing with a blade so sharp, it could cut bone.
Asherton caught it deftly and spun it between his fingers, the tip nearly grazing his wrist as he stared back at Magdala, his eyes shining and hungry—for violence?
For danger? She wasn’t sure. Not for her, surely.
Before she was ready, he attacked. She spun away from him, her back striking the tall mirror. It bowed under her weight.
“I wasn’t ready!” she cried, angry.
Asherton just laughed as he ran at her again.
She ducked under his arm and swept her blade across his stomach, slashing his shirt.
Then she dropped to one knee and pivoted, meaning to scratch his leg, but he jumped off of one foot and flipped over her arm in a spectacular feat of acrobatics.
He landed gracefully, his hair falling over his eyes.
Magdala stared at him, her jaw slack.
“Why do you look so surprised?” he asked.
Magdala swallowed.
Smiling deviously, Asherton attacked again, his knife catching the light.
She whirled away from him, but his blade severed a lock of her hair.
It fell at his feet and he stumbled, trying not to trod on it.
Magdala took advantage of his distraction and lunged, but he twisted behind her and shoved her.
She nearly fell but steadied herself, her rage boiling.
Asherton snorted. “Come on, Mags, now you’re not trying.”
With a growl, Magdala charged him. He held his ground until she was upon him, and then dodged so deftly, she could barely track the movement. His hand closed over her wrist. He twisted, pain shot to her elbow, and her knife clattered to the ground.
“Did I make you think I couldn’t fight?” he whispered in her ear. “I’m a prince. I went to military school. Like I said last night—before, I was giving you a chance to kill me because I thought you were the assassin, and besides, it was fun sparring with you. Anyway, I win.”
Magdala didn’t like to lose. And she was determined to give him the amenite powder and be done with him and the miasma of emotions he stirred in her heart.
“I said to first blood,” Magdala snarled. She jammed her elbow into his ribs and he released her. They circled one another for a moment, like lovers at a dance.
Magdala struck first, slashing low, but he caught her arm below the elbow and tugged. She slid forward, her chest striking his. Quick and decisive, she brought up her knife and touched the blade to his throat.
Asherton froze, a half-smile on his lips. “Here we are again,” he breathed.
Magdala knew she’d made a tactical error because she didn’t trust herself to draw blood so close to his artery.
She moved to stomp on his foot instead, but he jumped back, releasing her.
He backed away, then turned on her with a series of rapid cuts and jabs.
She brought up her knife to meet his. The blades sang a staccato duet, steel on steel, a flurry of silver and sparkle.
Then Asherton parried, knocking her hand aside, and his left arm twined her waist. She could have ended it, cut him and walked away, but she let him whirl her off her feet, like they really were at a ball.
She imagined ghostly music echoing off the walls, the susurration of silk gowns, the clink of crystal wine goblets.
She surrendered to him as her feet touched the ground again.
His hand was open on the small of her back.
He bent his head, his lips, slightly parted, brushing hers.
Magdala raised her eyes. He was gazing at her with such powerful yearning, it cut her like a knife.
She wanted to press her lips to his and forget who she was, who he was, why every law of the universe forbade this simmering passion.
Magdala was clutching her knife so tightly that the ridged antler-bone handle chafed her hand, and she remembered that this was madness. She needed to keep her head and her distance. One of them had to be sensible.
Gathering her scattered wits, Magdala flicked her blade against Asherton’s side. He hissed and staggered away from her with a shocked smile.
“Don’t get distracted,” Magdala said coldly.
Asherton shook his head. “Oh, you’re like the goddesses in the books I read as a child. A force of nature, a divine bolt of lightning.”
Magdala’s cheeks reddened. Was this the truth serum or was he toying with her?
He pressed his hand to the scratch at his side and stepped toward her. “I wish you would let that fire out. I wish you would run with me, barefoot over the grass, and we could be free of this obstacle between us. This pane of glass that keeps us apart.”
Magdala backed away from him, her horror rising with each word. “Stop it.”
“I can’t,” he said. “The words are spilling out, and it feels good, like lancing a boil.”
Magdala’s heart thrummed in her ears. “You are the crown prince of Allagesh and I am nobody.”
“Then why are you here, lovely, fiery Magdala? Did you come to torment me with your cunning smiles and that wit that makes me want to kiss you more than I want to breathe? Did you come here to torture me with your powerful, beautiful body that lights me up whenever you move?
“Stop it,” she murmured.
“Tell me why you’re here.”
“Did you kill Julian Davenport?"
Asherton laughed. “Is that it? No. I did not.”
Somehow this was both a relief and a blow at once. If he didn’t kill Julian, then she had failed. No abdication, no house for her father, and no answers for Huxley.
“Then who did?”
But he swayed, reeled sideways, and collapsed on the floor.