Page 5 of The King’s Man #5
M agic. My last.
It takes a long time for the floor to stop plummeting under me, and then I’m seeing red . Pins and needles stab at my throat as I barely refrain from balling my fists. I’m unaware of how I end up right before him, but here I am, yanking that flutette from his chest before he can stop me.
His dark eyes fix on mine; something surfaces in his expression and is hurriedly buried again.
“You’re brave, Haldr.”
“You’re stupid.” I press the flutette against his unbudging lips.
My words start to pinch and wobble at the ends.
“You’ve been captured by your enemy. Your wounds are so deep they’ll scar even with vitalian magic, magic that you have no access to here.
Someone who gave you their magic would want you to use it. ”
His lips slacken and the end of the flutette slips between them. His gaze is tight on me before he rips it away. After a few moments, his shoulders jiggle, and then I hear his laughter and puffed squeals.
The flutette falls back to his chest.
He’s still laughing and the tightness in my chest loosens. I rock back, relieved the veil hides my flush.
“You... you remind me of...” He shakes his head. “He’d approve.” He waves a dismissing hand. “I know what to do.”
I leave the meditation grove to rough notes being blown through the flutette. It resembles a Lumin folk song, sort of—can Quin really not play? Had I really forged ahead carving that for him on the assumption, because he had a magic root in air, he must have talent with wind instruments?
A high note screeches through the trees, and even stone-faced stormblades flinch.
No matter how painful the music, the magic in the violet oak would be sifting through him, taking away his pain.
As I leave the temple grounds, Quin’s song follows me, a jarring note against my racing thoughts. Blindly, my steps lead me back home, where another part of me waits for reckoning.
My aunt is on the bench outside, tapping her foot. Her curacowl sits beside her and her long golden hair shimmers under the hanging lanterns. Her eyes follow me expectantly, and I take my time fiddling about taking off my curacowl .
It looks like the lights inside the house are out; the others must be sleeping. No chance for a timely interruption, then.
“I’ll pay you back for dinner.”
She cocks her head.
“How do you feel about examining me on distillation and fermentation? I’ll grab some—”
She grabs a handful of my cloak and steers me around. “You’ve altered your voice.”
“Isn’t this potion a grand success?”
“What spooked you?”
I shake my head and she lets go, sighing. “I have other news.”
I look at her curiously, and she continues, “I got home to this letter. From my sister.”
“Mother—what does she say?”
“She usually writes every other month. But this one...” She passes me folded paper. My mother’s writing is barely legible, full of errors and different strengths of ink. She must have written this in stages, some of it with urgency, possibly while crying.
I take a lantern and sit at the outside table to slowly decipher what she’s written. There’s been a great upheaval in the royal city. Many redcloaks and officials have been dismissed from service, left near penniless without work. Akilah has returned home...
I read the messy, incoherent paragraphs again .
Akilah was escorted by a young man—Florentius.
She was—is still—in great distress. The regent took out his anger on a third of some island where she was imprisoned, nailing them through their hearts.
One of the prisoners threw himself before her and took the hit.
The duke admired the devotion so much he sent Akilah home.
The paper trembles in my hands as my fingers grip its edges. My throat tightens, and I press the lantern closer, reading and rereading her words until the ink blurs. Akilah’s cries echo in my mind, making it hard to breathe.
How much you’ve gone through. I should have been by your side.
And Casimiria? What happened to her?
Almost a month has passed since I wrote the above.
Akilah spends her days lying in Caelus’s bed, calling out for him like she’s lost her brother.
Thankfully, Florentius comes every day with spells to help her.
He even carried her into the bath himself and insisted he wouldn’t shy away from anything that helped her look after herself.
It worried me that they are this close yet are unmarried.
I confronted him on the appropriateness of his behaviour and he declared, if it was the only way I’d let him help, he would marry her.
I let it go, of course. I believe he truly only wishes to help her.
He says my dear Caelus would have done everything to help her, and as his friend, he would do so in his stead.
Frostir’s breath, systra! I keep putting this letter away, intending to finish soon, and life takes over.
It’s been another week. We’re all beside ourselves.
I caught Florentius in the herb garden, weaving spring dewdrops into Akilah’s hair, murmuring to her that Caelus is smart; that he’ll find a way to survive.
I begged him to tell me what he meant.
My darling Caelus is alive—he escaped under the king’s orders and can’t return while the duke is in power.
My husband believes Caelus will travel south to Iskaldir and seek aid from our family. Please, dear systra, take him under your wing. Protect him as if he were your own.
I look over to my aunt, watching me sort through my emotions. From the start, she opened her arms, not once needing my mother’s pleas. She’d simply met me and understood. You’re family. You’re my responsibility now.
I return to the letter.
In the case he comes to you, pass this on. Let him know we are all well here. Little Lucetta misses him, we all do. Let him know Akilah is strong, and she’s being cared for.
Let him know we’ll pray for his safe return.
I fold the letter but can’t bear to part with it.
My aunt moves to my side and feathers my hair. “Keep it. Do you wish to let them know you are here?”
“It’ll lead to trouble for them.”
She hums. “You escaped under the king’s orders.” Her voice grows quieter, a knowing whisper. “His capture is what spooked you.”
I say nothing. I’m unable.
She seats herself beside me and presses her arm against mine. “You may take after your mother in looks, but you have your father’s spirit of adventure.”
I splutter a laugh. “Father is all rules and responsibilities. I’m questioning now if you’ve ever met him.”
“When your grandfather was still alive, your father was a man of great vision and determination. He travelled all of Lumin and Iskaldir in pursuit of knowledge and experience. Honestly, I admired him greatly when he first came to Ragn.” My aunt flushes and laughs it off.
“Of course, I was barely ten. He only ever had eyes for my older sister.”
It’s the distraction I need from the worry curdling my gut.
“My sister was such a soft, loving girl. Her kindness was too easily taken advantage of, especially by greedy, wolfish men. Your father protected her from the shadows. It was all by chance and coincidence at first, until he realised she needed someone guarding her around the clock and made it his mission to make sure she always arrived home in one piece. He kept this up for months, the casual visitor by day, and the secret protector after dark. One day, she saw him duelling one of the wolfish men. The crowd whispered he did this often, always for the honour of a beautiful woman. My systra, silly thing, had no idea they meant her. She helped him bandage his wounds—which, par-linea as he was, he did not need at all—and told him he was a good man. And that was that. I believe he kissed her right then and there.”
My father always claimed she was the love of his life in a brutish, don’t-ask-me-again sort of way, but I’d never imagined him quite so dashing. Also... “Duelling?”
“He’s not so bad with a sword, you know. I was young at the time, but he protected me once or twice too.”
How little I know of my own father. I drop my head into the crook of my arm and laugh .
My family . . . my dearest Akilah . . .
I close my eyes, my aunt’s stories fading into the quiet hum of the night. My family is waiting for me, trusting me to survive, to return. But Quin’s face, battered and defiant, rises unbidden in my mind. My king. My responsibility. If I fail him, I fail them all.