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Chapter 15

Leon

E ven though I know she wants to be alone, even though she’s angry with me, my instincts tell me to go after Morgana. Bad things happen when I let her out of my sight.

I take a few steps, following her tracks, but before I get any further, Alastor’s at my elbow.

“I get the impression she doesn’t want to talk to you right now,” he says.

“I know that,” I say, grimacing. “But what’s to stop her deciding to try and go it alone like before? Do you really want to comb through another forest looking for her?”

Alastor’s grimace matches mine. “Fair point. Let me go check on her.”

“What are you, the princess whisperer?” I demand, more offended than maybe I should be at the idea that she’d prefer to talk to him rather than me.

“No, I’m the fellow who can make sure she’s not planning to wander off again.” He looks at me, awaiting his captain’s approval.

I sigh and nod, letting him hurry off through the trees after her.

Which leaves me alone with my thoughts.

I couldn’t have known her mind would trap her in a disturbing memory like that, but I do remember seeing shades of that scene in her dream a few days after we left Elmere. I’d assumed it was a memory about drowning—an accident she’d had as a child maybe—but I know better now. It happened recently, and it was no accident.

It’s none of my business either way, of course. All that matters to me is doing whatever it takes to get her trained. I don’t want to speculate about what she’s carrying around in her head, not when it took so much persuading for her to let me in there in the first place. In the end, I had to bully her into it, but I don’t feel guilty about that. She can handle it. I see it in her eyes, the fight in her. When she’s angry, those eyes could burn right through you. Finding out she was a solari made a lot of sense.

And I’m learning that sometimes riling her up is the only way to get her to look past her own doubts and listen to me. I need her to listen to me. It’s the only way she’ll be able to keep herself safe in a world set on hunting her, for one reason or another.

Alastor returns, looking more relaxed than before.

“She promised me she wouldn’t go far,” he says. His shrug tells me he didn’t push for more beyond that promise.

“Fine,” I say, trying to sound casual, even if I still don’t like having her out of my sight.

“I think we should cut the training short,” Alastor says with his usual directness. “It makes sense to push ahead on our journey. Our stint at the inn has already made us late to meet the others, and we still have the Wirstones to get through before we reach them.”

“Fine,” I repeat, although we both know my unit will wait as long as I need them to, and they’re good at staying undetected.

“Do you think she’ll be able to do it? Unblock whatever’s making her magic so shy?” he asks, staring off in the direction Ana left.

I snort. “I wouldn’t exactly describe it as shy, would you?” Nothing about her was shy or demure. I’d known that much from our first encounter. She is made of fire and steel, whether her powers work or not.

He shakes his head. “True, not after what she did to those trees. I think I’ve seen maybe two solari in my life, and neither of them ever did anything quite like that.”

“Exactly,” I agree. “And now she’s fully weaned herself off that poison they were giving her, her magic could get even stronger.”

I feel Alastor’s eyes on me, and I wait. He’ll tell me what he’s thinking soon enough. He always does.

“There’s some people back in Filusia who’d find all this very intriguing,” he points out.

“You think that hasn’t occurred to me?” I ask. I know very well what he’s getting at, but I haven’t made any decisions yet. I have other priorities, and I’m still working out where the princess fits into my list.

Footsteps approach, and we stop talking as Ana appears. Even if she doesn’t want me to call her that, I can’t help using the name in my head. Morgana is the calculating, regal lady I met in the throne room, but Ana is the fiercely determined woman who confronted me in the inn to save her friend. That’s who I see now as she approaches us.

I hesitate, wondering what to say, and Alastor gets there first.

“Not sure if you’re still mad at him,” Alastor says, jabbing a finger in my direction, “But in case you’re going to get into another argument, I just wanted to let you know we’re leaving soon, so please make it quick.”

I think I catch Ana suppressing a smile as my friend heads back toward the horses. Often Alastor’s blunt honesty offends people, but she seems to appreciate it.

She takes a deep breath, then turns her gaze on me.

“Do you think there’s a way to train without that happening again?” she asks. “Getting stuck in that memory, I mean. I do want to find my magic. I know it’s important.”

She shakes her hair back from her face, the sunlight catching the chestnut shine in it. I blink, distracted for a moment, then try to answer her question.

“I think that depends,” I say carefully. “I can try to keep your mind away from that memory, but if it’s what your magic’s hiding behind?—”

“I don’t think that’s it. That night—” She sighs and sits down on a fallen log, wrapping her arms around her knees. “That dream is about the night my magic first showed itself. It’s about the guard I killed. Bede was his name. He came into my room and tried to…well, you saw.”

Rage rips through me like a wild beast, biting and tearing. I have to fight to keep my voice steady.

“He attacked you?” I ask. “One of your own guards?”

“Yes,” she says, matter-of-factly. “Ironic, isn’t it? He and his colleagues were supposed to be there to protect me, but as far as I know, they didn’t have to deal with a single thief or assassin or kidnapper the entire time I lived there. The only real threat to me came from inside the house.”

“Were they all corrupt? Why did no one else stop him?”

“He was clever,” she explained. “The new head of guards liked him, and Bede made friends with the others too. And he…he knew how to threaten me, making it clear he’d retaliate against my friends if I spoke out against him. He was patient, too, biding his time until he could arrange for a night where he’d be the only one outside my door. I knew it was coming, knew I couldn’t act against him directly—that’s why I left. The night you saw me in the tavern, I was supposed to be running away.” She smiles, but there’s no humor in it. “But that didn’t exactly go to plan. You were there; you know what happened. They found me, and when they returned me to the manor, he got his chance.”

My rage is shot dead in its tracks as I realize what her story means.

She begged me for help, and I turned my back on her. She knew what was waiting for her in the manor, and I was the reason that maggot got his chance.

Guilt is a much nastier emotion than anger. I still want to break things, but now I know all the splinters and shards should be pointing squarely in my direction.

“I didn’t know,” I say, as if that somehow makes up for anything.

She lifts her head and meets my eyes. I expected to see sadness and pain, but instead I’m met with steely resolve.

“I protected myself. I burned him alive until he was nothing but a smoking corpse on my floor.” She stands up. “I can use my magic. You showed me that before. And when I find it, and have a proper handle on it, I can make sure nothing like that ever happens again.”

This woman clearly doesn’t want comfort, nor does she need my sympathy, which is good because I’m terrible at both those things. What she needs is someone to believe in her.

“That sounds like a plan,” I say and am rewarded with a satisfied nod. For her, the matter is settled. I’m anything but settled, but there’s no sense in revealing that.

We mount our horses, and as we ride out, I’m more aware than usual of her sitting behind me. I don’t think I imagine her arms holding me a little closer, tightening around my waist as we find the road again. It means I can feel parts of her at my back that I couldn’t before, the soft curve of her body fitting against mine.

Behave yourself , says the scornful voice in my head. That will only complicate things .

I ignore it, enjoying how every now and again the breeze catches her hair and carries her scent forward to me. It’s sweet and spicy like the banks of jasmine flowers that grow in the gardens at Lavail.

I think of the manor she mentioned. I assumed she grew up endlessly spoiled and indulged, but her description paints a different picture.

Guilt settles on me again like a black cloud. I sent her back to that place, and now I find myself trying to imagine exactly how bad it was.

“I want to ask you a question,” I say. My voice doesn’t hide the gloomy direction of my mood. I feel her tense slightly, but she answers cordially enough.

“Alright.”

“Who lived with you at the manor, beside the guards?”

“My nursemaid, Etusca. She’s a dryad.”

The one who brewed her potion no doubt, keeping her drugged and helpless. I wait for her to go on, but she seems to have finished speaking.

“That’s it?”

“There was a cook and her daughter who would come each day, but they didn’t live at the manor.” I catch the wistful note in her voice. “Their family ran the inn.”

Hence her familiarity with the serving boy. Except she wasn’t meant to be there at the tavern. I got the impression she wasn’t supposed to leave the manor at all, so how would she and the boy have known each other so well?

“And your parents?” I don’t want to bring them up but still find myself asking. Surely, they had some regular role in her life. Surely, she didn’t grow up in complete isolation from her family.

“Why do you want to know?” she says, her voice harder than it was a moment ago.

“I was wondering how often they visited you.”

“I saw them once,” she says, so quickly I almost miss it.

Once. In twenty or so years. I say nothing, unable to find a tactful or honest way to respond.

“At least now we know why,” she says, a tinge of bitterness in her tone. “All this time, I thought the problem was that I was too weak to interest them. I never would have guessed that the problem was that I had power…but it happened to be the wrong kind.”

Even being the daughter of a king and queen couldn’t protect her from the Temple’s authority.

The royals might control most of Trova officially, but when the peace treaty was struck after the war, the Temple was given its own territory to appease its followers. It basically runs its own sovereign state from its base in the holy city while also reaching its tentacles out into the rest of the nation, courtesy of its clerics sowing the Temple’s beliefs and building its influence, inch by inch. The end result is that the Temple is equal to the monarchy: the two sides to Trova’s seat of power.

Maybe the Angevires were looking for a way around that—a long-term plan for Ana. They could have been searching for a way to remove her celestial power altogether so they could finally reveal her as their heir without any risk of her accidentally showing her hand and condemning herself to death. But it would be a fool’s quest. Removing someone’s magic—rather than just suppressing it—always kills them. The body can’t live without the gods’ power; it’s the spark that keeps us alive.

“You met them, didn’t you?” Ana asks. I’m so deep in thought I don’t immediately know who she means until she prompts me. “My parents?”

“I did. Briefly,” I say.

“What were they like?”

“I couldn’t tell you much. Like I said, it was a very short meeting.”

I pray she’ll drop it. She wants a pretty portrait painted of her mother and father, but I’m not the man for the job.

“Nothing at all?” she asks, frustrated.

“Nothing,” I say with such finality she falls silent.

It’s for the best. I don’t want to lie to her like all the people in her life have already, but I cannot give her an honest answer to this.

She wouldn’t like it at all if I did.