Magic Exchange: A Supernatural Academy Romance (The Velkin Royal Academy Series Book 1)

by Emmeline Winter

  Finding the saboteur wasn’t proving easy. Whoever they were knew how to cover their tracks so well that even a hunter like me wasn’t having any luck sniffing them out. The idea that a rebellion against peace with the humans was out there, brewing and growing with every passing day, tormented me. But having Carolyn at my side, a constant reminder of why this battle was such an important one to fight and win, made the torment almost worth it.

  Our schedule, though, was interrupted by my family’s Palace dinner. I considered inviting her along, but introducing her to the abrupt scrutiny of my parents—and their overwhelming desire to see me matched with a good human—would have been cruel in the best of circumstances. As it was, I decided Carolyn needed a little more time to prepare before taking in my mother’s deep, aching desire for her son to fall in love.

  The whole meal, though, I thought of her. Not even the best vintage of wine, drunk by the glass, could erase her from my mind.

  “So, boys,” my mother said, lifting a slice of bread buttered with unicorn’s milk to her lips. “I expect a full report since last time spoke.”

  “I saw you today in class,” I replied, barely able to keep the retort to myself.

  “No need to be smart with me, Anatole. You knew what I meant.”

  The eyes of the table turned on me. Dammit. They all knew that I had news to report and were waiting for me to offer that information. Well, they could wait as long as they wanted. What was happening between Carolyn and I was strictly our own business. The last thing either of us needed were my meddlesome parents or my bumbling matchmaker of a brother getting in the way of what already was naturally occurring.

  “Fine. Everything’s fine.”

  “Fine?” Tormin’s voice echoed throughout the dining chamber. A guffaw shortly followed. Rough, meaty fingers grabbed at my chin, presenting it to my parents. I wrestled my way out of the contact. “It’s better than fine. Have you seen this boy’s face lately? Look at him, he’s practically glowing.”

  “Ah, I take it Madame Dede and her Compatibility Seminar are doing their work, then? Has she selected someone for you yet?” My father asked, helping himself to a generous slice of spiced roast.

  “No. I’m just enjoying school, that’s all. Readying myself for the Midwinter Ball. Studying. Contemplating who I’ll bring to my Court when I become King and who I’ll dismiss.”

  Tormin smacked at a mouth full of sauced noodles, waving his fork in my direction like a conductor trying to coax music out of a particularly stubborn trumpet. His voice was sickly sweet and oh-so helpful, the bastard. “Anatole. Mother asked for a full report, and you are leaving something fairly significant out.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied, shooting him a look that was meant to end the conversation and only really served to tickle his interest even further.

  “My brother, the human-hater, has been sharing a bed with Carolyn Conners.”

  Everything stopped. The knives and forks against the plates. The sounds of chewing and drinking. My father’s foot tapping against the marble floor. All attention focused on me. Everyone waited for me to explain.

  But what was I supposed to say? Well, I’d really like to tell you that I’ve been spending every night making love to Carolyn, but we’re just sleeping in the same bed because we’re so terrified of failing both of our worlds and being attacked for doing so that we can only sleep when we’re holding onto one another for dear life?

  I suppose I could have said that. It would have been the truth. Still...sometimes no one needed the entire truth.

  “It’s not like that.”

  My father raised an eyebrow. “What is it like, then?”

  “She was being bullied, tormented by Ariedre and her little group. She was afraid to sleep. I offered to stand guard. Nothing more.”

  “Yeah, I bet,” Tormin snorted, an action my mother did not care for. With a snap of her napkin in his direction, she let her displeasure be known.

  “Tormin! That could be your future Queen you’re talking about. Don’t you dare disrespect her.” Without addressing the fact that she’d implied Carolyn would one day be my partner for all eternity, my mother breezed forward, turning her expression sweet and decidedly I told you this would happen in nature. No one loved being right more than my mother did, and for the moment, she allowed herself to bask in the glow. “I’m glad to see that you and Miss Connors have begun to see eye-to-eye. Will she be accompanying you to the Midwinter dance?”

  “We have more important things to worry about.”

  “Like what?” Tormin asked, clearly relishing stirring the pot of this conversation to take the focus off of him.

  "We have reason to believe that dark forces are conspiring against Velkin and Earth’s peace. We are going to ensure that doesn’t happen. She’ll need to learn combat, for one thing, which is far more important than any dance. Anyway, Tormin. What about you? How are you and Kyra?”

  All the blood drained from Tormin’s face. He busied himself with cutting pear into paper-thin slices with the sharp edge of a butchery knife. “There is no me and Kyra.”

  “But—”

  He leaned in close to me, his eyes pleading. Then, he hissed, “Just drop it.”

  There was such conviction in that plea, in the fear swimming behind his every word, that I couldn’t help but do what he said. With a small nod, I turned back to my parents and started a discussion on the conditions of the eastern wing of the artistry museum, something mindless and inane to take my mind off of the fact that my brother—my bold, strong, braver than any hero we’d ever read about in the storybooks brother—didn’t want my parents to know that he was dating a pixie.

  There would be another time for telling him that they didn’t care, another time for telling him that his heart—not the imagined politics of a long-ago war—needed to guide him. This was not that time, especially not when I was fighting against the same ghosts. How could I tell my brother to let himself love Kyra if I couldn’t even convince myself to let my feelings for Carolyn grow beyond wanting to protect her from the world?

  The family dinner adjourned after the fourth course as my father was needed in his study for a brief counsel with some of his most trusted advisors, leaving Tormin in a heated discussion with some of my father’s newest guards. I took the opportunity to wander to the windows overlooking the city. In the distance, I could see the lights in Carolyn’s tower were illuminated. Their golden glow called out to me across the space between us. Warm wine found its way into my stomach as I tried to quell the desire to reach out for her, too.

  “You know, son, I was thinking...” Mother wandered up behind me, her reflection in the window pane getting closer until her small hand rested on my shoulder. “Trust is all about give and take. Perhaps you should allow her to teach you a human custom if you’re going to teach her combat.”

  A human custom? What kind of human custom would she have to teach me? A noncommittal shrug accompanied my answer. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “Do you love her?”

  I choked on a mouthful of wine. Love? Who ever said anything about love? “Mother, what kind of a question is that?”

  “The kind of question a mother asks her son when his future is on the line. You know, my visions aren’t final. You don’t have to love her just because you think it will save the world.”

  “That’s not it.”

  My control over confessions regarding Carolyn had not improved. The thought of my mother believing I only wanted to love Carolyn because of some vision she had simply wasn’t acceptable to me. It would have been easier, yes, if everyone thought we were together for the good of our people. But I didn’t want what was easy. I wanted what was real.

  “Really?”

  “She means a great deal to me. Visions or prophecy or no. But I feel...” My mind flickered back to my last words with Adric. Choosing to be with Carolyn meant choosing to forsake my brother and every plan we’d ever made together. Was that
something I could really do? And, more importantly, even if I could do it, what would it mean for Velkin? Turning away from the window and Carolyn’s light in the distance, I looked at my mother, the wise ruler that she was, and sought her help. “How do you know when you’ve done the right thing? How do you know a choice is the right one?”

  “An important question for a ruler. For anyone, really. I would say that in order for you to know what’s right, you have to listen to your heart. Not your ego. Not your sense. Not your fears or your prejudices. But your heart. Sometimes it’s quieter than all of those things, but it certainly won’t steer you wrong if you take the time to listen.”

  Long ago, I’d tried to bury my heart because I thought that would make me a great king. Adric told me, time and time again, that emotions made a king weak and a nation vulnerable. But Carolyn, through her sharp words and her soft eyes and all of the beauty that she carried within her heart, excavated the long-buried, long-forgotten part of me. I knew what it wanted. It wanted her.

  Adric’s training, though, everything he told me about what would make me a great king, still hung around me like a dust storm, threatening to consume me with every breath.

  “And what of my duty? My duty to my heart, my duty to my people...How do I decide which is most important?”

  “The duty to your heart and the duty to your people are one in the same. I know from experience. And so does your father.”

  Of course. My mother had been a simple peasant elf-maiden, and father had fallen in love with her and married her despite all of the conventions telling them such a match was forbidden. That oh-so scandalous marriage had given Velkin the best Queen they’d ever had. Maybe, just maybe...opening my heart to Carolyn wouldn’t be such a disaster. Maybe it would actually be just the thing we needed.

  Or maybe it would leave us all in ruin. I didn’t know which. Mother’s hand on my shoulder tightened, a reassuring squeeze.

  “No matter what you decide, no matter what path you take, I trust that you will guide Velkin into a bright, peaceful future. You must trust yourself as much as I trust you.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  I’d never given anyone a reason to trust me. I wasn’t sure I deserved it. But if people as good as my mother and Carolyn thought I was worthy...Then I couldn’t let them down. I would fight for Velkin, for Earth, for all of those who loved me and came before me. No matter the cost. Trust had gotten me here. And trust would see us all safe and at peace. Perhaps, if I put trust in Adric, he could return to Velkin a changed man, a man who no longer saw the need for war. And we could all be a family once more. Mother moved away from the window.

  “Now, come along inside. I believe that there is some Bramblesnap pie waiting for you. That always clears my head after a long day of worrying.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Carolyn

  After the work I’d done today in the card-reading class run by Queen Freia, I was fairly confident that I would never—and should never—be trusted to read the future ever again. Of all the mildly magical or mystical classes that we took, of course it had to be the Queen’s class where I did the absolutely worst. How embarrassing.

  Still, after a terrible day of incorrectly divining the future, I figured that I still hadn’t done badly enough to warrant a Carolyn, can I please see you after class request. And yet, there I was, sitting in front of Queen Freia’s desk, fiddling with a stray thread on my skirt and trying not to look as much like I was about to cry as I felt.

  For a long moment, she regarded me, silently, and I waited for her to say something, anything, that would erase the tension knotting all of my muscles. When that didn’t come, I couldn’t help but blurt out the first thing that came to mind:

  “I’m sorry.”

  Queen Freia’s enigmatic smile captured my attention and refused to let it go. My anxiety shot through the roof and she asked, not unkindly: “For what?”

  This was the result of being hurt by your own mother all the time. You never knew what you’d done wrong, only that you’d done it. Turning my focus back to the damn stray thread pulling at the fabric of my skirt, I swallowed hard and tried to look contrite. It wasn’t hard. “I don’t know. Being bad at reading tea leaves, I guess? I know I got basically everything wrong today, but I’ll try harder and I can study more, and—”

  “Dear, do you really think this is about your schoolwork?”

  “What else would it be about?”

  A wry chuckle bounced off of the room’s stone walls. Braving a glance up from beneath my eyelashes, I caught sight of the Queen’s smirk, which she paired with a knowing quirk of her left eyebrow. “The fact that you’ve been sharing a bed with my son.”

  “It’s not like that. It doesn’t mean anything!”

  “That’s what he said too. And I believe you that it isn’t anything tawdry. But I don’t agree that it doesn’t mean anything. I think it means a great deal.”

  Heat flooded my cheeks. Could this be any more embarrassing? After seeing magic and incredible wonders with my own two eyes, you’d think I wouldn’t care about something like my crush’s mother implying that we were having feelings for each other. But, no. With every second that passed between us, I wanted to fully disappear from the humiliation.

  “He’s just helping me sleep,” I said, trying to convince myself as much as I wanted to convince her. Letting myself believe it could be something more meant risking my heart, and I just wasn’t willing to do that. Not yet, at least. “That’s all.”

  The crackling fireplace underscored her silence. Then, she rose from her seat, crossed to the small window, flooding with light, and retrieved a small pair of gold pruning sheers, which she used to tend to a lively snapping plant as she spoke. I watched as her hands gently caressed the toothsome flower bulb’s head, calming it into submission until she could cut away its dead flowers. I wished it was that easy for humans to cut away the parts of them they no longer wanted or needed almost as much as I wished the Queen would just tell me what she’d called me in here for. “Has Anatole ever told you anything about his life before we knew of the existence of humans?”

  “Some things.”

  “My three sons were thick as thieves, the best friends anyone could have. But Adric, my second child, was always different, always a fighter. Not just against injustice or wrong, but against everything. He thought it was him who should be the King of Velkin, not Anatole. And when we discovered Earth, he believed he needed to destroy it. That, he thought, would prove his worth as a leader. Anatole loved his brother. And when my husband banished him...It broke something within Anatole’s spirit. He became consumed with the loss and with hatred. The only things he allowed himself to feel were anger and resentment and cruelty.”

  That squared with the Anatole I’d known, the one who shut himself out from the world and clung to every ounce of power he had and who hated humans…But what had shifted within him? Or…was she trying to tell me that he hadn’t shifted at all, that he was still the man he’d been when we first locked eyes across the Grand Staircase?

  “So, you’re telling me to stay away from him.”

  “I’m telling you that you’ve changed him.” The ghost of a smile passed across her lips, and a pair of worn hands reached out and squeezed mine, stilling them from their constant, nervous fidgeting. “And, I think, he’s changed you. There is a darkness coming for Velkin, and only your lights together can break it.”

  “We’re just friends. Partners. You know, like a crack detective team trying to solve the case. Nothing more than that.”

  God, I was doing the nervous talking thing again. She squeezed my hands once more.

  “Do you believe a word of what you’re saying right now?”

  “He’d never let himself feel anything more,” I said, after a pause. My chest ached at the declaration, even though I knew it was true. No matter how he acted with me, no matter what he said about our truce, if what his mother said was true…he’d never entrust his heart to a hu
man. Even one he’d tentatively agreed to save the world with. “Not like what I feel.”

  “I see things differently. I see you as the two who are going to stop this brewing war from happening. And if you’re going to stop a war, then you’ll need to be prepared.”

  With a groan, Queen Freia picked herself up out of her chair and opened up one of the many cupboards lining the walls. Whatever magic within must have been strong, because, to my eyes, it looked as if she were simply reaching into a black void neatly tucked into the wooden cabinetry. Like Mary Poppins pulling something from her bag, she reached inside and withdrew…

  “A sword?”

  But not just any sword. Even before she opened her mouth to explain what it was, I could see that it was special. She held it across both of her palms, extending it out for my inspection. Ambient light from the fireplace and the window glinted off of the hilt of a thousand tiny rubies, each one carefully laid into the long, elegant blade’s handle.

  I don’t think I’d ever thought of any weapon as beautiful. But this was a work of art. And she was offering it to me.

  “It’s mine. The Queens of Velkin have passed this down for nearly two-thousand years, one queen to the next. It’s SpellSteel; it’s the only kind of metal in our world that can kill anything.” She placed the metal in my hands. It was surprisingly light, considering it placed the weight of two worlds upon my shoulders. “Use it to defend your world, Carolyn. Use it to defend Velkin. Use it to save us all.”

  “I can’t take this. I can’t accept this. I’m not…” Hot tears welled up in my eyes as the universe seemed to crowd around me. All of the sudden, after thinking I could take on the world with Anatole at my side, I realized what taking on the world would actually mean. Who would want to follow me into battle? Who would care enough about someone like me to think I could save them? What happened if I let everyone down? My mother’s caustic, slurring words—you’re pathetic, you’re nothing, you’re lower than dirt, no one will ever want you, no one will ever love you— reverberated in the back of my skull, bouncing around like stray bullets. “I’m not a queen. I’m not a warrior. I’m a nobody.”