Chapter 35
Magdala stumbled to the stable and mounted her father’s fat old cart dragon bareback. It unfurled wrinkled, creaky wings and flapped them reluctantly. She kicked it, but it could barely mount above the trees, and it rose and fell with each wing beat until Magdala thought she might be sick.
She landed in the palace courtyard and left the dragon untethered. It contented itself with lazily chewing a rose bush. Already, she could hear the city rumbling, the people simmering, building up to a riot.
Perhaps the curse was real after all. Perhaps it had slithered into Asherton’s mind and poisoned him to change the policy, so he was the agent of his own destruction.
As Magdala tore up the steps, her anger mounted like a flooding room.
Before she entered Asherton’s chamber, she doubled forward, bit her hand, and released a muffled scream.
She felt as though Asherton had plunged a knife into her back.
Or, much worse, as if he’d plunged one into his own heart while she stood by and watched.
She hesitated, staring at the latch, trying to beat down her emotions as one beats back a frothing, angry dog.
Finally, she opened the door. Zephyr sat by the fire, fitting together a puzzle. She scanned the room for Asherton, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is he?” she demanded.
Zephyr looked up at her over his glasses. “I thought he was with you.”
“He changed his policy,” she blurted. “He announced he was going to cut off trade with Ashkendor.”
Zephyr started. “That wasn’t the plan.”
“Where is he?” she repeated, and her stomach bottomed out when Zephyr’s eyes widened.
“I thought he was with you.”
“How could he be with me? I just returned.”
“You were never to leave his side!” Zephyr cried, jumping up and bumping the table. The puzzle scattered across the carpet. “Why didn’t you wait for him outside the council room?”
There was no time for excuses or explanations. Magdala turned and ran down the corridor, then through ballrooms and sitting rooms, the servants’ quarters, the kitchen, and out into the gardens.
Was he out in the dark, waiting for an assassin to take a shot at him? Had someone lured him into a trap? Was he already lying dead in the lake, a knife in his heart? She never should have left him. She should have sat outside the council room door, waiting.
The moon cast faint, silvery light over the grounds. A few nocturnal guests strolled along the flower beds and sat in pergolas, stealing midnight kisses. They watched Magdala as she tore past, her hair billowing, her voice shrill as she screamed, “ASHERTON!”
Leaving the gardens behind, Magdala made for the lake and the boathouse at the base of the palace grounds.
A long dock ran from the boathouse to the shimmering water. As she rounded the corner, she collided with someone.
The person stumbled, and she caught their arm to steady them.
“Huxley?” she exclaimed, shoving him away in disgust.
“There you are,” he said. “I assumed you’d come.”
“Where is he?” Magdala demanded. “What have you done to him?”
Huxley raised his eyebrows. “Where is who?”
“If you have harmed him, I will kill you. I will wring your neck!”
“I always admired your loyalty, Magdala. I thought I could trust you. But you never slipped him the amenite, did you?”
“I did,” Magdala snapped. “I did, and he said he didn’t kill Julian. Oh, and if you’re wondering how he survived, there was an antidote. Funny how you didn’t tell me it was toxic.”
“I thought you knew,” he said scornfully.
“Asherton didn’t kill Julian.”
Huxley set his teeth on edge. “I don’t believe that and neither should you.”
Magdala turned from demands to pleas. “Please, where is he?”
He let out a spiteful laugh. “You fell for him, didn’t you? You pathetic creature, you fell in love with your charge. What will your father say …”
Magdala lurched forward and gripped Huxley’s lapels, shaking him. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM?”
“Calm down, gracious.” He struggled free and straightened his jacket. “See for yourself.”
With a disgruntled sniff, Huxley strode past her, disappearing into the shadowy garden.
Magdala looked down the dock. A lone figure stood silhouetted against the shining water.
“Ash!” Magdala called. He didn’t turn, so she sprinted toward him, her footsteps echoing hollowly on the wood planks. “ASH!”
He startled, as if he hadn’t heard her before, and as he turned, she expected to find a knife in his heart, or a shotfire to crack the stillness and blow his brains out.
But nothing happened. The wind blew in the trees and the water lapped against the pilings.
Magdala crashed into him, gripping his arms.
“What are you doing out here?” she half-sobbed. Her eyes roamed the gardens and the palace walls, the glowing windows where a sniper could be hiding even now, lining up a shot. “You bloody idiot! What are you doing out here alone?”
He didn’t reply, but his eyes were traveling over the palace, too.
“I thought you were dead!” It came out as an angry sob.
“I couldn’t find you, and I thought …” She punched him hard in the shoulder and he stumbled back a step.
“Why would you come out here alone? Why? You bloody, stupid fool!” She advanced on him, tried to shove him, but he caught her arms and pulled her against his chest. “I hate you! You’re so stupid and cruel, and I hate you! ”
“I know. I know,” he said softly. He laid his hand on the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her hair.
“What were you thinking?” A scream of rage burned in her throat. She swallowed it. “You’re exposed! Anyone could take a shot at you.”
“Yes, exactly, so let’s get inside.” He turned, pulling her toward the boathouse, but she wrenched her arm from his hands and stared at him, aghast.
“You … you did this on purpose,” she stammered. “You saw I was gone, and you came out here to bait them while I was out of the way.”
He ran his hand through his hair and offered her a half shrug.
“How dare you!” She turned away from him, wanting to hit him. Wanting to push him clean off the edge of the dock. “You little son of a … how dare you? You have no right to do that to me!”
“I’m not saying I want an assassin to take their shot, but if it’s going to happen, this way no one gets hurt.”
“No one? What about you?”
“Well, no one I care about.”
Magdala pressed her fists against her eyes. “What do I have to do, Ash, to convince you that this self-deprecating attitude is a pack of dragon skat!”
He almost smiled, but fought it down.
“Is that why you changed the policy?” she demanded. “Some kind of passive suicide?”
“I had to do that. I had to because Valenna told me …”
“I knew it!” She strode toward him, holding up an accusatory finger. “She manipulated you.”
“She thinks my brother is alive.”
“That’s insane.”
“She thinks he might be in Ashkendor, a prisoner or worse. She worries that if the war doesn’t end soon, we’ll lose him again. Forever.”
Magdala shook her head, her throat tight. “No. No, that’s crazy.” But she remembered what Zephyr had said about Marwenna, Evander’s mother, who could revive the dead. What if Valenna was right?
“Either way, I want the war that took him from me to end,” Asherton said. “And I want him back, either alive or I want his body out of Ashkendor. This is the only way.”
“But Ash … you hardly knew him.”
“He was one of the only people who has ever loved me …”
“That’s not true!” she shouted. “What about Zephyr? What about me?”
Asherton let out a tremulous laugh. “You don’t love me, Mags. You said yourself that you were just lonely and excited, and you lost control.”
“Maybe I lied!” she cried, her desperation mounting. “You should know me well enough by now to know when I’m lying!”
“Did you lie?”
“It doesn’t matter either way. You’re not made important because people love you or unimportant because people hate you. You matter because you’re a human being with a soul, and you don’t need another reason to live.”
“But I want you to live,” he said quietly. “And I know what will happen if someone takes a shot at me or slashes a knife at me.”
“What will happen, Ash?”
“You’ll step into the breach. And I’ll lose you. I will not risk losing you.”
“Then why did you do this? Why change the policy?”
“Because I don’t want to lose Vander either.”
She understood. She was hurt and frustrated and so angry she wanted to boil over like a kettle, but she knew what it was to love and to hold onto the person you love until your fingers lock and you cannot let go.
A love like that spurs you to a kind of madness, until you’re standing on a dock under the moon, tossing your whole life into a bonfire you lit yourself.
“I will not lose you,” he said again.
She held up her hand, threatening, her eyes dark with fury. “If you go down, we go down together. Shotfires blazing, knives in our hands. If our blood spills, it mingles. Understand?”
He hesitated. “I’ve painted a target on my chest today. They’ll come for me soon.”
She grabbed his hands and squeezed until his fingers were white. “Then we face them together. We take them down with us, and then we go down, like one.”
He nodded. “Alright then.”
At that moment, Magdala knew that falling for him was a fatal mistake.