Page 19

Chapter nineteen

Decide

O n the other side of the front rock garden, a man stood behind the arching black gate. I looked up from my miserable ruminations and locked eyes with the coal black eyes of the prince. His name slipped from my lips before I could stop it. “Prince Leon.”

He ducked his head. “Lady Aelia.”

My knees bent as if to curtsy, but I locked them with a test of my will. I would no longer bow a knee to the one who betrayed me.

The Shade glanced toward me, then stepped between me and the prince, blocking part of my view of him and the gate. “Leon, you’ve lost your entourage.”

I hadn’t noticed, but the prince had come alone. I frowned. What was he playing at?

“I didn’t come to battle you.” He leaned around the Shade until he could see me again. “I came to talk with Aelia.”

The Shade crossed his arms, his shadows boiling across the ground beneath him, as agitated as he was. My chest tightened with anger, anger that I thought was his. “Then speak your piece and be gone.”

The wolves were tense and crouched at the ready on either side of me. The gray wolf to my right had her teeth bared in restrained violence. Bertha slunk along the fence line, staying away from the sunlight, triggered into bloodlust by the tension of the others. Her eyes sparkled with fury.

I drew myself up even with the Shade, my ankles buffeted by shadows as my tunic swirled around my legs. “Prince Leon?”

The prince dragged a hand down his face. “I came to apologize—”

The Shade snorted and spoke in my mind. “Too late.”

“—for everything and how it happened. I can’t imagine how frightening it had to be.”

“Most animals chased to death are frightened,” the Shade murmured.

“I didn’t mean for my men to hurt you.”

“Just for your hairbrained seer to.” The Shade stopped as I put my hand upon his elbow.

“I can’t focus with you muttering,” I thought to him.

“My lips are sealed.”

The prince continued, “It’s just…the prophecy seemed clear to us, I mean, to me. And you were the obvious cure.”

“So obvious.”

I smacked the Shade lightly. His chuckle rumbled between us.

“And so, I have to beg your forgiveness. My mother is worsening. My father is at his wits’ end. Your father…wanes…” His head lulled forward and hit the gate with a clunk. “We need you, Aelia.”

“Bet his mommy put him up to it,” Jamison interjected.

But my attention was pulled by that long-held desire of mine. They needed me. I closed my eyes, fighting against the torrent within me, the longstanding ache to be wanted, to be useful. Perhaps now they would see me for me. Perhaps now, finally, they saw the value of my contributions…

“No. Still no. They need to value your person, Dayspring. Your whole person. Magicless, in a dress, in pants. In the morning. Late at night. All of you.” I waited for him to finish the thought, I wanted to hear him say, “like I do.” But it never came. The Shade’s expression was a hard facade, only the shadows in his eyes betrayed any emotion at all. I shifted back toward Leon.

My childhood friend, the prince, looked worn down and haggard, his perfect hair mussed and frayed, and his jacket was missing a button. His leather shoes had lost their gleam as they trounced down the canyon to meet with me. Fool me once…

“What was the prophecy again, Prince Leon?” I asked quietly, tired of the games.

His brow furrowed. “The ruin of kingdoms from weak ones come. A sacrifice will make things right. Lest the deep reject the vile ones. Stars and sun turn black as pitch, the light must fight to cure that which has doomed us all to death and decay.”

I frowned. “That doesn’t even rhyme.”

A door clanked open behind us. “That’s because he forgot to say half of it.” Uncle Koll strode purposefully down the stairs, his cane clicking upon the stone. “Poor form, Leon. I expected better from the one who claims to lead the nation with light and hope. You should add some truth in there too before it bites you in the rear.” A wolf beside me chomped the air in response, and the prince jolted backward.

“It contains the important bits,” he snarled.

“And yet, those were the same bits the king regent used to get rid of the Shade. Leon, you cannot use sophistry here. We don’t stand on pretense or politics. Just tell the truth, boy.”

Prince Leon’s face grew sullen. “I don’t remember the rest.”

Then Uncle Koll’s voice rose, clear and strong, echoing down the rocky canyon.

“The ruin of kingdoms from weak ones come,

but bind, entwine, and tie them some .

As day from night, the brightness fights,

A sacrifice will make things right.

Lest the deep reject the vile ones

that slink beneath and this way run.

The stars and sun turn black as pitch,

and light must fight to cure that which

has doomed us all to dark decay,

Still, love must reign and find a way.”

Uncle Koll took two more steps down the front path. “That is the prophecy, is it not?”

Prince Leon pulled at his collar. “Yes, that sounds right.”

“Does killing a faithful servant to the crown sound like love?” Uncle Koll asked.

A low blue flame lit in the prince’s balled fists. “I love my kingdom. I love my people. I demonstrate my deep love for this kingdom daily as I reign. That is the love that will save us.” He gave a furtive glance toward me. “We just needed to sacrifice one without…without power.”

Uncle Koll’s face was lined with sadness. “While I do believe you love your kingdom, I do not believe that murdering an innocent is ever the way to establish peace, restore hope, strengthen your people, or save your mother.”

“She’s dying.” The prince’s reply emerged as a broken wail, no longer hostile. Brokenness had even weakened the tension of his shoulders. “She’s dying, and I can’t stop it.”

My heart shattered. My queen, the woman who had loved me, was dying. Because of me.

“Arrogant. Selfish. Self-aggrandized. Egotistical maniac!” Jamison’s wings buffeted around my head. “ As if you were the creator and source of life and magic. Ha! Make the sun rise and fall, and then maybe I’ll blame you. What foolishness.” The bat swept up to the tall tower and ducked inside. Apparently, I had let down my mental blockade.

Prince Leon extended a hand through the gate toward me, but a snarl from the wolves made him pull it right back. “Just leave this place. Come with me. Come back home, Aelia.”

Home. My mind drifted to Chef, the good memories of castle life, even of my father on a good day. Leon, disheveled and vulnerable as he was, reminded me of him as a boy. My friend. The friend who had tried to—

“Do what you will, Dayspring.” The venom in the Shade’s voice astounded me. He stalked up the stairs and threw open the door. “Get off my threshold, Leon.” The shadows pulled the door closed behind him in a resounding crack.

I bustled after the Shade. “I’ll be right back, Leon.”

“But my mother!”

I held up a hand. “I know. Wait right here.”

Rushing through the manor, I sprinted to the solarium and grabbed a box filled with the latest potions. I left one box for Uncle Koll, but this should be enough for a week or more depending on how sick the queen really was. I returned hastily and carefully to the gate.

Leon’s gaze lit with momentary hope until he saw the box of potions. “You’re not coming back, are you.”

Of course not, but his guilt almost changed my answer. “N—I—Not yet, Leon. Take these to the queen. They should help for now.”

His lips pulled back in a violent expression. “You stole these from your father?”

Offended, I pulled the box nearer to my chest. “I made these, Leon. I do not stoop to lying, thieving, or murder. ”

A flush of red stained his cheeks as his shoulders sunk again. “S-Sorry. Father—” Suddenly the prince’s thoughts flooded into my own. “I never should have listened to him. I can’t handle the pressure from all sides anymore. First his demands, then Mother’s…” His thoughts faded into garbles.

“One day, you are going to be king, and you will have to follow your own code, Leon. Not his, not the seers’. Not the masses’. Your own values. Your own way. You can’t keep being pushed around all the time and think you’ll know yourself at the end.”

“Easy enough for you to say. You’re not a prince.”

I raised my brow. “I’m in no-man’s land, Leon. Not an accepted lady, not a servant…but I’m not useless. And I’m not hopeless either. If I can work on finding my own way, maybe you can too.”

His thoughts slipped through. “She’s better than me.”

I waited to see if he’d say more aloud. But when he didn’t, I reached for the gate which unlocked at my touch with a loud clang. “Take these to your mother. And tell her I love—I hope she heals quickly.” I swallowed back the word, realizing the impropriety of what I was about to say. She wasn’t my mother.

Leon had heard it anyway. “She loves you too, you know. Maybe more than me…especially…especially after everything.”

I set my hand on his forearm. A wolf had snuck up beside me and growled at my action, ready to defend me if Leon tried to pull me beyond the gate. “She still does, I’m certain. It’s not too late to change your course.”

“But the seers—”

“I’m no expert, I admit, but they were wrong about many of the things that we blamed on the Shade. Maybe…they aren’t all-knowing, Leon.”

He hmphed .

“Maybe your father isn’t either.”

He pulled the box from my grasp. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Thank you for these, Aelia. I’ll take them right to her.”

The prince turned and headed up the canyon with heavy steps that moved quicker the farther he went. Eventually, he met his retinue and mounted his horse. I stepped back toward the manor, noting a swish of an upstairs curtain without a source as I made my way to the door.

The gray wolf neared again, tucking her head under my palm, as a single cub raced out from the manor and pummeled right into the wolf’s legs. She bent her head and licked furiously all over. “Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.” She crooned at her baby. My smile was a bit watery as I walked through the front door. The bats had all tucked themselves up into the coffered ceiling and draperies and coat racks throughout the front room. A group of little foxes tumbled into the sitting room with yips as they played under the tired but watching gaze of two adults. The badger trundled past, looked me over, and gave me a nod before making his way into a closet with a burrow of blankets.

Uncle Koll came up beside me, taking it all in. Notably, there were no billowing shadows nor tortured souls here.

“I don’t know where he went,” I said to Uncle Koll.

“He might need a moment, Aelia. There’s no excuse for him running off, as you know. But…he expects everyone to reject him. As his father did, as the people do, he expects everyone to follow suit. Deep within, I worry he might believe it himself—that he is unlovable.”

“But the animals love him.”

“Certainly. As do I.” He looked at me thoughtfully, his gaze a soft brown as warm as his frybread and honey. “But he has spent most of his time defending himself from misunderstanding and hatred.”

“I don’t hate him!” I whirled to Uncle Koll. “He couldn’t think I would hate him after all this. ”

“I very much think he could. He is confident, incredibly powerful, and a deep well of affection. But his inner circle of trust is very small, and it is hard for him to let anyone in at all.” He tapped his cane. “I trust he will soften on his own and come to you. But you need to decide where you belong and who you want to be yourself. I don’t want to see either of you hurt needlessly.” Leaning heavily on his cane, he slowly clicked down the hall.