Page 41 of The Arrow and the Alder

S eph strode briskly up the path that led to the hall, feeling uniquely renewed and determined this morning. She’d awoken with clear purpose and a burning desire to solve the mystery of her grandfather’s coat. It was as if Ava herself had set a fire in her soul—one that burned away every fear and insecurity.

Without those, the answer to last night’s dilemma was immediately obvious.

She had questions as to the details, of course, but she trusted Ava and her saints to sort those things out as Seph engaged with them.

Many kith smiled as she passed by in her exquisite gown of silver, and she knew what they saw.

Her great-grandmother.

Seph had left her hair down on purpose, to remind them as much as she intended to remind herself that this was in her blood. The guards didn’t stop her as she pushed through the grand double doors and into the great hall.

Celia, Tyrin, Priestess Nistarra, and a few more silver-robed kith stood around a table, bent over the coat, but at Seph’s entry, they all looked over.

Priestess Nistarra stood tall. “Princess Josephine.”

Seph scanned their faces, though her gaze lingered on Celia despite herself, and she felt a prick of jealousy. She shoved it down and smiled instead. “Good morning.”

“You look well,” Tyrin said, matter-of-fact, as always. “I trust you’re feeling better?”

“Much, thank you.” Seph stopped beside the table. “I was informed that you would like my help with this.” She gestured at the coat.

There was a beat of silence. No doubt they were all struck mute by this shift in Seph and how closely she resembled her great-grandmother just then. And strangely, Seph felt her great-grandmother’s presence, as if she’d come down from the heavens to lend her strength.

“Yes,” Tyrin answered at last. His gaze fell to the coat, and his brow creased. “There are a few…additional counter-enchantments I thought we might attempt. Being in Basrain’s company gave me some ideas, and if the Fates are kind, hopefully we might have the light out of this coat by the week’s end.”

“Are we supposed to do that?” Seph asked, and they all looked at her.

Celia’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“There’s a reason Massie wants it,” Seph replied. “And I don’t believe it’s because he intended to give the power back to the land. Which further leads me to believe that releasing the power isn’t enough. It actually needs to be placed somewhere so that it doesn’t go into a person.”

It was what had made the most sense to Seph as she’d stayed up late into the night, reading and thinking. So much thinking that her head still ached.

Tyrin and the priestess exchanged a glance.

“And where would we place it?” Celia asked coolly.

Seph studied the coat and the swirling script that ran like rivers over the iridescent fabric. She wished she knew how to read the language of enchantment. “I don’t know, but I would like to revisit the translations. You’ve said there are quite a few enchantments you’ve never seen before, but the ones you do understand…how do they translate?”

“They seem to be a kaleidoscope of unrelated terms.”

“What sort of terms?”

Priestess Nistarra sighed. “Basic enchantments for protection and strength. A heart for courage. There is one for light and for sorrow, and even one for a star, so it is like looking at a collection of words, but they’re all mixed up and out of order.”

The priestess’s words brought to mind a story Seph had read last night. Well, it wasn’t so much the story as it was the script her grandfather had written in the margins:

Heart of a star.

Salt of sorrow.

Endure the fire.

Surrender light borrowed.

It hadn’t made sense to Seph then, and it certainly didn’t make sense to her now, but many of those words were listed in the ones Priestess Nistarra had just mentioned. Seph felt the urge to know all the rest.

“Priestess Nistarra, how long would it take you to translate each character on a sheet for me?” Seph asked.

The priestess blinked and glanced down at the coat. “I may be able to have it to you by later this evening. At least, the ones I can translate.”

“This doesn’t seem like a good use of our time,” Celia said. “Tyrin has a few ideas that?—”

The doors slammed open again, and this time Alder strode through, followed by Evora and, to Seph’s surprise, Serinbor.

Saints, Alder looked devastating this morning in his fitted blacks and his forest-green overcoat that clasped over his broad chest. A sword fell from his waist, and his elegant black bow hung over his shoulders. His hair was swept back, his features were sharp and strong and thoroughly aristocratic, and his eyes pierced like a freshly honed blade.

Seph’s breath lodged in her chest, and when those steely grays found her, her heart constricted. The memory of last night set her soul aflame, but his expression remained cool and distant. He turned his gaze from Seph to the others, and he stopped a few paces away.

Seph’s heart was a percussion against her ribs, and she hoped the elders couldn’t hear it.

“I came to say goodbye.” Alder’s commanding voice filled the hall.

Seph jerked internally. She hadn’t realized Alder was embarking on his mission so soon, and her spirits sank at the prospect.

“Excellent,” Tyrin replied. “Is there anything else you require before you leave us, Prince Alder?”

“The Fates’ good favor,” Alder replied, with a sardonic twist to his lips—lips Seph had kissed last night. Passionately. “I expect to return within a fortnight.”

“And if you do not?” Seph asked.

Her voice echoed sharply through the chamber, and Alder looked at her a second later. They all did, and Seph sensed a sudden shift in the balance, a scale tipped to her hand, as if they were all swiftly reminded of who and what she was: Abecka’s heir. Seph also suspected that this was why Alder showed no evidence of last night upon his face, especially before Celia. His gaze remained cool and unreadable, and even if it was an affectation, Seph didn’t like it one bit.

“I will , Your Highness,” Alder said with both formality and finality. “But in the unlikely event that I do not, you may defer to Serinbor on how best to proceed.” He gestured at Serinbor, who stood with his chin tipped skyward. “Evora will be staying behind as well, as an added measure of protection.”

Serinbor and Evora were staying behind? “They’re not going with you?”

It was Priestess Nistarra who said, “We thought it best that Prince Alder leave behind representatives we know and trust.”

“But what about Al—Prince Alder’s safety?” Seph asked.

“I will be fine, Highness.” Alder’s eyes warned her off from pressing more, from showing her growing concern for him.

Seph did not like this, not at all. She also didn’t understand why he’d chosen Serinbor as a representative. Then again, maybe he hadn’t. Serinbor had been a citizen of Velentis well before Alder and Seph had arrived; it could’ve been the elders’ decision, so perhaps that was why Alder was also leaving Evora.

“So unless you have need of anything else, I will take my leave,” Alder said to the council.

“You have our blessing, Prince Alder, and we will implore the Fates for your safe and profitable return,” Tyrin said. “Please give our regards to Lord Hammerfell.”

“I will, and I thank you, Tyrin.” He inclined his head. “Priestess. Elders.” He glanced at Seph. “Your Highness.” He started to turn.

Seph could not say goodbye like this, diplomacy be damned. “Wait.”

Alder stopped in his tracks, and she was very aware of everyone watching her now.

“I would like a word with Prince Alder,” she said with a strength in her voice that did not reflect the nerves humming through her body. “In private.”

She might have just scandalized herself, but she didn’t care. He was leaving and he might never come back, and it would be a happy day in Harran before she let him go on these terms.

“No, no…stay,” she said to the council, who had started to leave. “I’ll escort him out.”

She didn’t wait for their response. She strode straight for Alder, and the two of them walked abreast in silence, pushing through the doors, past the guards, and out of the hall, and it wasn’t till they were out of the guards’ hearing that Alder murmured, “I was trying to make this easy.”

“Then you shouldn’t have kissed me like that.”

“Need I remind you that you asked me to?”

Seph was about to scold him, but the ardent look on his face froze the retort on her tongue.

“They’re going to whisper about us now, darling,” he drawled.

“Is that why you acted like we hardly know each other back there?”

His pace slowed to a stop. “Is that what this is about?”

Seph stopped too. They stood at the edge of a bridge, with a waterfall cascading beside them, and it was on this waterfall that Seph kept her attention fixed while fine droplets of spray dusted her brow and cheeks. She couldn’t help but think of Rys. “I…might never see you again, and I could not let that be goodbye.”

“Ah.” Alder stepped to the rail and leaned sideways against it so that he could face her. He looked…Seph couldn’t quite tell. His expression was shielded, and then he said, “I didn’t think it wise to show partiality to the Court of Light’s new queen at the very inception of her rule.”

“Well, considering my grandfather disguised himself as his brother to steal his throne, I think it’s safe to assume that I’m a little hazy where courtly expectations are concerned.”

Alder laughed. The sound was low and rich and planted itself right in Seph’s heart, and then he pulled a folded piece of paper from inside of his jacket. “Anyway, I wasn’t planning to leave you with nothing.” He held out the paper.

Seph took it and realized quickly that it was a small stack of folded papers.

“Open it.”

Seph opened the creases to find that Alder had, in fact, given her five sheets of paper, all filled with characters and their translations. “Alder…” She flipped through the pages, aghast, scouring them as she did. “Are these…all from the coat?”

“They are. And if you snap your fingers, they’ll arrange themselves into the way they slide over the coat.”

She snapped, as instructed. Sure enough, the characters rearranged themselves into the very same pattern as they appeared on the coat.

“This is…you are magnificent!”

“I know.”

“This must have taken you all night!”

“Strangely enough, I wasn’t tired, so I thought I might as well make the most of it by helping you read our damnable symbols .”

She met his gaze over the papers, and he pulled something else out of his jacket. A single sheet of folded paper, but this one had been sealed with green wax. He held it out to her, but when she reached for it, he raised it just a little. “This is…for later.”

Where no one else can read over your shoulder, he might have said.

He lowered the paper, and Seph took it carefully, cherishing the weight of it.

“Two weeks?” she said.

“Assuming we don’t intercept any trouble.”

“And you’re certain you can trust this uncle?”

“Far more than I ever trusted Basrain. My uncle is also the sort who seems to know things that the rest of us aren’t privy to, which honestly was annoying in my former years. He may not be able to help me directly, but he’ll know who can. It’s a start, at very least.”

“How do you know he won’t kill you on sight?”

His mouth quirked into a grin. “He would never do that to my mother.”

Seph knew Alder needed to do this, but she still didn’t like the idea of him leaving. “But what about your…condition?” she whispered.

Alder combed a hand through his thick black hair, leaving it in marginal disarray. “To say I’m unconcerned would be a lie, but I don’t see any other option. We are swiftly running out of time. This needs to be done, and I am the only one who can do it. I’ll manage. I’ve done it long enough.”

She could see how it unsettled him, the idea that he might lose control and hurt someone along the way, though looking at him now—at his handsome face—she never could have guessed he lived with something so monstrous. “I wish I could go with you.”

“It will be good for you to spend some time with your kin.” Without me , he didn’t say.

“I suppose,” she said.

“And if anyone gives you trouble, just set Evora on them.”

This made Seph chuckle.

Alder seemed to make up his mind about something, and he pushed off the rail to stand before her. Seph gazed up at him, and he looked down at her, and she knew that if anyone were watching them now, they would know this heir of Light had already given partiality to the prince before her. Especially when he cupped her cheek and pressed his lips to her brow. His lips lingered there, and while it was sweet, Seph wanted more.

He pulled away too soon and took a step back, as if he didn’t trust himself to be near her any longer. “I need to go.”

They stared at each other across that distance, and Seph felt a very physical pull upon her person. Something that twisted and knotted and would never be undone. She had the sudden urge to give him something as he had given her—something to take with him so that he did not forget.

Alder turned to go.

“Wait,” she said, and Alder glanced back just as she was reaching her hand into her corset, between her breasts.

Where Rys’s little ring rested.

“What are you doing?” Alder asked lowly. His neck splotched red, and his eyes were molten.

She pulled the necklace up and over her head as she stalked to Alder, who stood as still as a statue, especially as she reached up and draped the necklace over his head. “It is not a letter, but it’s something.”

“Josephine…” He grabbed her hand as she was pulling it away. “I can’t take this. This belonged to Rys, and he?—”

She squeezed his hand and smiled up at him. “He gave it to me, and now I am giving it to you. It brought you back to me once, and perhaps it will prevent you from losing yourself like it helped you before. I probably should have given it to you sooner. May it keep you safe so that you return to me in one beautiful piece.”

Emotion clouded his eyes, and he brought her hands to his lips. “I don’t deserve you.”

“I know.”

He smiled wickedly before he pressed his lips firmly to her hand, and when he looked back at her, all his humor was gone. Something raw and earnest and vulnerable burned in its place, and Seph’s heart stuttered.

“If the Fates should see fit to bring me back and end this curse, then I swear to spend the rest of my days doing everything I can to deserve you.”

Seph’s heart was a hammer in her chest.

He dragged his thumb over her knuckles, sending a shiver through her body, and in a swift and decisive rush, he released her hand and was gone.

The letter that Seph was supposed to save for later had been tucked away for much longer than she hoped. After Alder left, she’d taken his letter to her chambers, promptly informed the priestess not to worry about translating the coat for her, and brought Alder’s translations with her to the council hall, trying to make sense of the characters or find a pattern in them. Meanwhile, the elders debated different enchantments under Serinbor’s and Evora’s quiet observation, though none of them worked.

Seph’s head ached by the time she returned to her chambers, but she forgot all about the pain when she spotted that little innocent paper peeking out from beneath her pillow. She set down the pages of Alder’s script and dashed over to her bed, pulling out the sealed document he had left.

The wax had been stamped with the emblem of a tree. An alder tree, Seph realized, and she eagerly slipped her finger through, broke the seal, and opened the single sheet.

My exquisite little arrow,

I have been a selfish boor the whole of my wretched life, but nothing feels more supremely self-centered than wanting you the way that I do and compromising you the way that I did, considering what I am. Honestly, your brother would’ve killed me, and yet if given another opportunity, I would do it all over again—and more. Perhaps I’ve learned nothing and I am still the same selfish ass you accused me of being when we first met. You’re always so uncannily perceptive.

I left the pages of characters for two reasons. One, so that you have enough to preoccupy that beautiful mind of yours until I return, and perhaps you will manage to untangle what your elders cannot. Two, as we’ve already established, I’m a selfish ass, and my primary aim is to ensure that I find a way into your thoughts a little each day, as you’ve surely commandeered mine.

Lastly, I wish to say this: you are a lion, Josephine Alistair. Always remember that. No matter what your elders ask of you or how they advise, lions should not be hidden away. They need to be let loose.

Yours for all eternity,

Alder