Page 9 of Princes of the Outlands (The Castles of the Eyrie)

Chapter 9

Rangar

Rangar knew the girl in his arms wanted him. Aya had made it clear that she would accept a physical relationship without an emotional one—and gods, it was tempting. Her body was so lush and tight as her curves melded into his chest. He’d heard what the soldiers in the Baer army said about Aya—she was the one they all longed for, and now she was his.

If he wanted her.

Maybe he was being a fool over the Mir princess, as his brothers constantly teased him. He’d only seen Bryn twice in his life: the first when he saved her from wolves, the second when he snuck into the Harvest Moon Gathering. And yet he’d thought about her every night since he was nine years old. She was his Saved; he was her Savior. The fralen bond wasn’t a duty that he took lightly. And, of course, when he’d seen her grown up with those luscious lips and perfect curves…

He dropped a hand into his pants pocket, where his fingers found the button he’d kept with him for a year. Bryn’s button, which she’d dropped at the Harvest Moon bonfire, and he’d picked up as a token to remember her by.

Rubbing the wooden button between his fingers, he gently broke the kiss with Aya.

“Aya.”

There was enough regret in that one word that she instantly turned away, stung. She was smart enough to know when she’d been rejected.

“So that’s it, then?” she asked quietly. “It’s her or no one else?”

“I saved her life. She and I are forever bound.” He dragged a hand down his scarred face. “She has these same scars on her body.”

Aya folded her arms defensively, or maybe it was just the cold. She glanced through the bare trees toward the horizon where the sun was sinking.

In an effort to change the subject, she asked tightly, “Are you coming to the Hold for supper?”

A part of Rangar still wanted to reach out and give Aya all the reassurances she wanted. He’d never intended to hurt her—but the simple truth was that his heart wasn’t free. Still, he’d never been taught to put such feelings into words, so he only barked gruffly, “No. I’ll get something from the kitchen later. I need to return this sword to the armory.”

She dipped her head in a nod and turned away but then paused and looked back at him. The snow caught in her long, dark hair like stars against the blanket of night.

“I hope she’s everything you want her to be,” Aya said.

Rangar swallowed hard. “She is.”

He didn’t know how to explain that he just knew Bryn even though they’d spent so little time together. Aya had never been a part of a fralen bond, so there was no way she could understand how two souls, even far apart, could be intertwined so fatefully.

Aya pulled her cloak’s hood over her head and whistled for Hurricane, who flew down from his branch onto her arm. Rangar watched as the girl and bird disappeared down the hill toward Barendur Village.

The sun sank fast. A chill spread over the woods. One by one, lanterns were lit in the windows of Barendur Hold and the surrounding village. It beckoned him home, and yet he didn’t quite feel at ease.

His heart told him that he’d made the right decision—and yet it wasn’t easy to have blind faith that he belonged with a girl he barely knew.

He dressed quickly in his linen shirt and bearskin cloak. Sheathing his sword, he sauntered down the hill toward the village.

He spotted The Whale tavern and wondered if Valenden was there, as he often was this time of night, warming his belly with ale instead of bread from the castle’s kitchen and warming his lap with yet another girl. Rangar shook his head, briefly wondering if Valenden would ever find a girl and settle down. Perhaps…what if Valenden and Aya were to pair off…but no. Aya was too grounded for his brother. Valenden would forever have his head in the clouds—or a wine barrel—and Aya needed someone who matched her ambition.

As Rangar neared the village, he began to spot townspeople preparing for nightfall: the soldiers on patrol, the shepherd leading the last of his flock into the Hold’s great hall.

He was surprised to catch sight of Trei outside the draw bridge, helping to unload a cartload of split wood. It was nothing out of the ordinary for Trei to pitch in with the villagers wherever he was needed, but Rangar knew that Trei had been planning on speaking with Saraj that night about their future—he should be screwing her senseless right now.

Ah, well, the night wasn’t over.

As Rangar entered the village, he nodded to the soldiers who wished him a good evening and then crossed the draw bridge into Barendur Hold and made his way up the winding stone stairs to the mage quarters.

The smell of herbs and potions enveloped him. He’d always felt at home here, where the mage apprentices were quietly hard at work, and nature’s gifts filled baskets along every shelf.

Calista and Ren, two of his aunt’s apprentices, were busy grinding dried mushrooms with mortars and pestles at the worktable. When Rangar filled the doorway, Calista glanced up from her work.

“If you’re looking for your aunt, she’s in the back room.”

Rangar gruffly thanked Calista, then made his way through the dark, narrow passages to the rear chamber used for experimentation. His aunt, Mage Marna, had her back to him as she stood before a stone altar draped in velvet. The rhythmic sound of metal on metal reverberated through the air. Thick white streaks ran through her otherwise reddish hair—she’d seemed ancient to him for as long as he could remember.

“What brings you here at this late hour, nephew?” she asked, not looking up.

Rangar stepped closer to the altar, where she was sharpening her many knives with a stone. The rhythmic sound continued as she finished sharpening a knife with a long, thin blade, then picked up a finer blade.

“The same reason I came last time,” he said.

“Ah. I see.” She finished polishing the fine-bladed knife, then set down the sharpening stone. “What hex shall it be tonight?”

Rangar shifted his weight from one foot to another. He was glad for his bearskin cloak—it was always frigid in the mage quarters. He wasn’t sure why he was reluctant to confess to his aunt that he had come about Bryn. It was hardly the first time he’d sought magic to cure his interest in her.

She met his gaze with a flicker of understanding as though reading his mind. “Ah. The fair-haired princess. I told you already that the translation hex requires more skill than you possess.”

“I haven’t come for that. I’m learning Mir on my own.”

Mage Marna gave an approving nod. Though she was the kingdom’s chief mage, she advocated for the sparse use of hexes, preferring that tasks be completed the old-fashioned way instead, with two hands and no whispered spells.

One never knows when magic will turn on its caster , she always warned. Use hard work if one can and save magic for special occasions.

“But it is about the girl, isn’t it?” she pressed.

Rangar lifted his chin. “I want a hex for scrying.”

His aunt’s eyes narrowed briefly at the request. “There are many scrying hexes.”

“One that will let me see her,” he clarified. “From afar. I have no wish to trouble her, but I want to see her. To know that she’s safe.”

Mage Marna’s eyebrows lifted, but she didn’t scold her nephew for wanting to spy on his Saved. As one of the kingdom’s top advisors, she knew how strong the pull of the fralen bond could be as much as anyone.

“Scrying spells are secondary; they require a caster to first have a hex for improved vision.”

Rangar tugged his shirt collar down, showing the eye symbol scar on his collarbone. “I’ve had that one since I was eight.”

She grunted deep in her throat as her eyes moved toward her row of sharpened knives. “There is one hex that might pair well with your skill level. A water-scrying hex. Fill a clay vessel with salt water that has sat out beneath a full moon. Wait for the sediment to settle, cast the hex, and end the spell with the location you wish to observe. Sometimes the images are stronger than others. Sometimes, the images don’t want to come at all. Are you sure you want it?”

“I’m sure.”

“Shed your cloak and shirt.”

While Rangar stripped to his waist, Mage Marna selected among her knives, settling on the fine-bladed one. She gathered herbs from the storeroom and returned with a tonic for him to drink.

“You know the requirements,” she said. “Hold still.”

Bracing himself against the stone altar, he gritted his teeth as she cut into his skin beneath his right lowest rib. With over three dozen hexmarks, Rangar was practiced at handling the pain. The army commander who trained him and his brothers had taught them to focus their vision on one spot on the wall and let their minds go blank until the pain felt as if it was happening to someone else.

But this time, Rangar’s mind refused to empty. Fantasies of Bryn dancing at the Harvest Moon Gathering filled his head. Her fair hair catching the moonlight. The laughter on her pert lips. The gown she’d worn with its lace and flouncy skirt that had made her seem like she was flying as she spun.

“It’s done.” Mage Marna straightened, wiping the blade with a rag.

Rangar snapped back to the present and tentatively touched around the fresh wound that vaguely mimicked the shape of a curving wave. Like all of his aunt’s carved hexes, this one was tight and precise.

She handed him the rag, and he pressed it against the blood.

“You have moon water and a vessel in your storm rooms, I assume?” he asked.

“So eager to see your princess, are you? Your wound still bleeds.”

When he didn’t answer, she gave a small snort as though reflecting on the folly of youthful love. “Calista can give you what you need.”

It didn’t take long for Calista to hunt up the supplies. Rangar took the jar of seawater and clay bowl to the roof of Barendur Hold, one of the few places where one was nearly guaranteed privacy. Only two sentries watched guard over the Hold far on the other side.

Snow fell steadily. Though clouds obscured the moon and stars, the reflection of the snow brightened the night. Kneeling on the stone roof, he emptied the water into the vessel. While he waited for the sediment to settle, he shrugged back into his bearskin cloak, leaving his shirt off so he could keep the rag pressed to the wound.

The familiar sound of waves lapping at the shore near Barendur Hold’s eastern wall floated on the breeze. Snowflakes swirled around him as he gazed into the vessel.

“ Ka visten aus aquim ,” he muttered as he traced the wave symbol of his latest hex in the air. “Bryn Lindane’s bedroom in Castle Mir.”

The murky image that surfaced showed a four-poster bed and elegant furniture but no princess. It took Rangar several tries, scouring his memory for locations within Castle Mir where she might be so late at night. Finally, he gave a wild guess and whispered, “Saint Serrel’s shrine.”

It was the site of the wolf attack nine years before—where their fralen bond had been forged.

And there she was.

Far south, the Mirien kingdom’s warm climate meant little snow fell, though the image in the water showed Bryn wrapped in a cloak against the cold. She dipped a glass bottle into a stream’s sacred waters but paused and looked at the rocks where the wolf attack had taken place. Then, her eyes shot straight at Rangar, almost as though she could see him. His breath hitched—but it only lasted a second before she looked away, corking the bottle, and called something to her sister, who was waiting for her on the trail.

Rangar watched until Bryn disappeared out of sight and then poured out the seawater on the rooftop’s tiles.

“ Princess ,” he practiced under his breath, the Mir words still unwieldy on his tongue. “ Princess. Prin-cess .”

Would she be afraid of him when he saw her again at the upcoming Low Sun Gathering? Be alarmed by his scars and dark bearskin cloak? Or would she, too, feel the rush of seeing a kindred soul?

He practiced Mir until late into the night, when he finally descended into the warmth of the great hall and fell onto his bedroll among the slumbering villagers and sheep. His two brothers’ bedrolls were empty.

Rangar hoped that Valenden and Trei had each found their hearts’ desires that night—or at least someone warm to take away the night’s chill—but he didn’t mind sleeping alone.

One day, he imagined, Bryn might be here at his side.

Until that day, he’d run her button between his fingers and wait for his princess.

THE END