Fallen Princeborn: Chosen

by Jean Lee

  Liam opens his mouth to speak. Closes it.

  He has no answer.

  He has nothing but blood. Screams. Hope laid waste to nothing. All those years I lay in the ashes of meadows, weeping. Of huddling naked in the hall after being used, Arlen wanted… …He sees Arlen’s smile, hears Arlen’s laughter just as much as he sees Father’s sneer, hears Father’s boy.

  Dorjan growls and slumps at the edge of the barge, arms locked firmly around his legs.

  Cairine watches the wind lift Dorjan’s hair off his hunched body. “Every time my husband readied himself to take you back, I told him, ‘Liam is no longer the sweet child of skipping stones. He is just as wicked as his parents.’ And my husband always gave me the same stubborn answer, even when stories arose of your warring nature, of the fire and pain you unleashed upon the innocent. By the time you were brought to River Vine I believed myself to be right.” Only now does she face Liam, muzzle but a foot away from his face. “Your spiteful anger had all the promise of a long and wretched life.”

  Liam nods. How can he not? Did he not lock himself away in the studio, evade speaking to his teacher for days, weeks on end? Did he not once come upon the She-Bear—Cairine, she is Cairine. A woman, a wife, a mother—did he not once try to kill this cursed, innocent woman in her sleep? If not for the cub crying out at the sight of him, he’d have succeeded. If not for Aine’s panic, Cairine’s jaws would have surely taken his head.

  And he would have deserved it.

  Liam even offers it now, his bowed head. His tongue knotted beyond hope or defense. What worth can he possibly hold compared to the likes of Charlotte and these princeborns? Far better the Stellaqui take him, benefit from the study of his inner workings...

  Long, delicate fingers brush the back of Liam’s neck—hesitantly, sweetly.

  A drop of something wet splashes between his shoulders.

  Charlotte, sniffling—rubbing her sleeve against her face, no doubt.

  “What was the foolish answer?”

  Cairine looks to Arlen. Arlen strokes the fur behind his wife’s ear. “I told Cairine that blood alone does not define a family.” When he turns to Liam, his own eyes sparkle not with mischief, but tears. “I failed you, Liam. Every burning word, every fire you ignited across the world and within these walls, I knew them. I felt them. I had to feel them. I deserved to.”

  “No.” The word flies with Liam on the wings of shame. His eyes squint shut. “No.” He says it again, and again, as though he is now the toy broken beyond repair.

  Those delicate fingers made for music, not war, trace his collarbone and reach to find his chest, spreading over his heart’s fire. More fingers come to hold his shoulder. Soft warmth presses to his back. Warm lips press to his neck.

  The warmth moves away. Oh Aether, Charlotte’s saying—

  “Look at Arlen. Please.”

  What?

  Liam wills his eyes to open.

  Arlen braces Liam’s forearm.

  He does not let go.

  Arlen’s other hand reaches for Liam’s neck.

  He does not let go.

  The wind carries the scent of water to Liam’s nostrils, and for a moment, he is the boy who walks along the sea near the land Cairine, sand trapped between his toes, running to another of Arlen’s lessons, the scent of honey cake sweetening the air.

  At last Liam brings himself out of the past and into the present. Have Arlen’s wrinkles vanished? They seem so small, so thin, as though age has fled this man.

  “No more running,” Arlen says, voice hoarse and true. “No more hiding. I swear.”

  Liam’s head droops. His forehead rests upon Arlen’s. His body shudders as he reaches for Arlen’s arm and neck and holds them just as tight. Small taps drum the herb roll between them as tears gather and fall.

  No more running. For either of us. No more.

  Cairine kisses her drowsy Aine and lifts her head to watch the shore.

  Charlotte watches Liam finally succumb to crying. Pretty sure she’s going to join in before too long—

  But then there’s Dorjan, huddled at the corner of the barge, watching Sergeant’s eyes move, alligator style, through the water nearby.

  Charlotte picks up Dorjan’s muffin (and plastic, before it blows out onto the lake) and tiptoes over. She bites the muffin and holds it out to him.

  No response. The stench of jealous anger wafting off him says enough.

  Charlotte sits next to him. She dangles one foot in the cold water, toes wriggling like worms. “When I was a kid, I didn’t get why other kids got to have cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents—you know, all these relatives who had family reunions and came to Family Day at school. Anna and me only had Aunt Gail. Dad sometimes told us stories about his folks, but he and Mom never said shit about her childhood. I just figured Mom was some orphan.” The plastic reflects the late afternoon sun into Charlotte’s eyes, yet she doesn’t blink. “Then Dad’s shot dead. We learn we’re meeting a grandma and uncle for the first time ever, and Anna and me, we’re, you know, we’re kinda excited.” She wipes some muffin off her teeth with her sleeve. “Then I really met them. Psycho Grandma. P-pedophile Uncle.”

  Dorjan looks up, green eye a new kind of vicious. His lips remain pursed, as he leans towards Charlotte instead of away.

  “And I was so. Angry. For years. At them and Mom …at Dad, too. Especially Dad. He had to have known what they were like. But he never told us. He never warned us. Like somehow silence was the best protection.” Her fingers itch to braid her hair. Instead she shoves the plastic into what remains of her trouser pocket. “And what did I do when I see Uncle Mattie grooming Anna? I didn’t say anything. I just, kidnapped her instead, like somehow that’s going to make sense after years of being in that hell-hole. And I justified it all in my head, telling myself she’s young, she shouldn’t have to know shit like that yet.” Her voice shrivels. “Love is stupid like that sometimes.”

  Silence.

  Charlotte takes another bite. She sees Sergeant’s kelp hair float past them beneath the water’s surface like a waterlogged shopping bag. On her right, the wind sets the distant trees swaying, the pines more stubborn than the maples and oaks. No Evil Incomplete or giant vines out for a stroll. Maybe Orna’s finally worn herself out. Please let SOMEthing finally change in our favor. The Wild Grasses cover much of the northern area of River Vine, its sweet movements very calming. Relaxing.

  But so was the prairie field around her grandmother’s. Charlotte tried to hide in it, often.

  Uncle Mattie knew it too damn well.

  Charlotte slows her chewing. Acid bubbles at the back of her throat, but she forces herself to swallow.

  Dorjan snatches the muffin from Charlotte’s lap and chomps down only to spit it back out with a loud plunk into the water. “Preservatives. Disgusting.”

  22

  Storytime

  “Lose something?” Plunk. The setting sun casts many shadows, but the magic in Sergeant’s mouth makes his sneer glow a faint bluish-green.

  Dorjan’s spat muffin, barely even a lump, oozes on the small pile of plastic wrappers between Dorjan and Charlotte. Aine continues to lick the apple Liam sliced for her after tending Arlen’s ribs. Arlen sleeps at last, face buried in Cairine’s fur, as she remains a sentry of the Wild Grasses from which they escaped.

  Dorjan flashes his best grin. “Honest mistake?”

  “Hmph.” His double-blink couldn’t be any slower. “Well don’t let it happen again.”

  Liam slides up alongside Charlotte. “Of course not, Sir.”

  “Now. If you don’t mind, the Captain’s arrived with a few more provisions—and company.” He changes to sea-speak as his head dips below the surface.

  Dorjan leans over to Liam behind Charlotte. “Do we tell him we’ve been pissing in the lake?”

  “Not if you want to want to avoid their needles,” says Liam.

  “Both of you, shut up.”

  One, two, three heads pop out of th
e water a few feet from the barge. First, Captain, frightening teeth in a smile that isn’t too threatening from several feet away. “Isn’t this a beauty?” She holds up a new bone spear. “Queen Avo herself presented it to me.”

  All three lean over the barge’s edge for a closer look. “Do I explode if I touch it?” Dorjan asks.

  Captain whips her kelp-hair at him. “I don’t know you. And no.”

  Up close, Charlotte and the princeborns can see the curved, serrated head is as long as Charlotte’s calf. The shaft is decorated with curled carvings similar to those floating on the Library’s dome.

  “A beautiful piece,” Liam says admiringly, “and worthy of its owner.”

  “Sorry about the one I broke,” adds Charlotte.

  Captain shrugs, then swims aside for the other visitors, the High Sage and his hero in a half shell.

  “Not more turtle power...” Charlotte moans—quietly, she hopes. Liam nudges her to smile, and Dorjan’s blue eye lights up with fresh mischief.

  The turquoise lines upon the High Sage’s face gleam in dusk’s light. He floats in a slow, serpentine fashion towards the barge, and holds up another bottle of starlight with a sack. He double-squints and nods politely as the sea turtle swims closer. The turtle keeps his beak above water to say, “I hope you don’t mind—”

  (Though by Dorjan’s frantic crab-crawl backwards he certainly minds.)

  “—but when the guards described the craft you created, I just had to come and see for myself. May I?”

  Charlotte shrugs. “If you want. Rose House made it. I only asked.”

  Dorjan’s whisper could rival Poppy’s for volume. “Aunt, there is a talking sea turtle in the water!”

  “Well be polite and say hello. Don’t let Aine scratch him.”

  Sure enough, Aine toddles over and plops herself right next to the High Sage and bats at his stringy kelp hair while his long, stony fingers run tappity tappita along the barge’s edge.

  “Aine, stop that. Here, have a—” Charlotte grabs the sack and pulls out the first thing she finds “—a bagged peanut butter and jelly sandwich.” Liam tugs Aine back enough so Charlotte can place the sandwich between cub and water-folk. “Have a blast.”

  The sea turtle observes the High Sage smile and double-blink, his fingers moving fast enough to play Joplin. “Fascinating,” says the sea turtle. “I can feel the magic of both elements in harmony here.”

  Liam rests one hand on Charlotte’s while leaning forward to speak. “How often does such a harmony occur? I recall nothing from the Kingborn Histories.” He looks to Dorjan, who stands warily with his hands in his pockets, craning his neck to watch “Do you, Dorjan?”

  Dorjan answers with a shake of his head. “I always thought the water-road to be as close as our elements could mesh, and that’s still a network of rivers marked by white trees and wishing wells humans create. Aether didn’t exactly give Velidevour a hall pass into the bigger bodies of water.”

  The High Sage turns to Charlotte, a tiny smile playing about beneath his vast, gazing eyes.

  Gah, stop creeping me out again! “Hi.”

  “It is a rare thing, indeed,” says the sea turtle. “I myself have only witnessed such a harmony once before: when the weapon upon this princeborn’s back drew Stellaqui poison out of his Velidevour body.”

  “What the what?” Dorjan trips over Aine’s apple core and almost sends Liam over the edge and onto the old merman. Thankfully Liam’s got a bit of strength—and balance—in those bare feet of his.

  “I didn’t. Charlotte did.”

  Now everyone stares at her (save for Arlen, still asleep, and Aine, still licking the peanut butter bread off the roof of her mouth). Charlotte’s gut spins at maximum overdrive, and she just wants to puke it all out, even at the risk of Sergeant’s wrath. “So I did a thing with seaweed and the blood dagger, okay?” She moves to stand near Cairine, who at least turns to face the other shore again. “Magic’s weird. I don’t get it. I don’t get what you all can and can’t do. You cut out human hearts or stick people into trees, and you cut people and animals open to stare at their guts. None of it is like the stuff I read in fairy tales or in heard from Dad. I mean, he said mermaids saved him once, but I guess he should have been in some display case at the bottom of Lake Superior.”

  TING

  Captain’s bone-spear resonates the barge to silence. She spins it back, narrows her eyes, and says, “Sorry, but you just never stop talking once you start. Explain this ‘saving,’ please.”

  The High Sage claps his hands. “Oh, rescue stories really are the best,” the sea turtle says with a beaky grin. “So often land creatures simply end up on display with their entrails removed, don’t they?”

  A pause. “Y-yeah.” Charlotte opens her mouth, closes it. Glares at Liam’s curious expression. “You weren’t listening in the bubble, were you?” When he tries to flash a Dorjan-ish smile, she can only growl, plop down, and talk. “1995. Dad was serving on the Sprague—sorry, USS Clifton Sprague—they’re en route for dealing with this coup in Haiti. A tropical storm ramps up into Hurricane Marylin, and the Sprague hits it head on. Dad and a few others got blown overboard.” Charlotte holds her hand out to the merfolk. “Dad swore, even with all his Navy buddies around, that a mermaid saved him. Something with hands grabbed his torso and held him on the surface when the storm just—he says they must have hit the eye of Marylin, because everything went super-quiet for several minutes, and the world was just the ocean, the Sprague, and the night sky. All the stars were super bright, Dad said, so bright he and the three others could wave and be spotted. Once they were on board, Marylin went on tearing through the Gulf. That’s it.” Charlotte barks a nervous laugh. “Storytime’s over. Thank you. Go. Look at other people. Try Dorjan.”

  The High Sage and sea turtle follow her directions…for a moment. “But he’s not very interesting.”

  “HEY!”

  Thankfully, Captain comes forward to gently guide the High Sage away from the barge. “Sir, maybe you should return and report. You know how impatient the queen can be—and she loves a good rescue tale herself.” The High Sage shakes like an old man caught in a summer chill, but the sea turtle lingers, its beak set in a thoughtful frown. Only with some urgent clicking from Captain does it move its flippers to swim backward. “Farewell, princeborns. Girl of the Curious Eyes, farewell. May we visit again soon.”

  “Yay, yeah, goodbye,” Charlotte says through a toothy smile. Damn, I hope not.

  23

  Twilight Talk

  Liam’s inner wings beat fast and hard for many reasons.

  He and Dorjan are on first watch. More Stellaqui patrol the water—half a dozen, as far as he can tell, circling like ripples around the barge. Their movement sets the barge on a slow, endless spin, allowing the two princeborns to survey the entire shoreline without having to sit on either side of the bear Cairine’s vast countenance.

  They are beneath a naked sky without hope of cover. Twilight wanders into the west, which means the Celestine will be free to fly down from their cosmic perches. If they attack, the princeborns can hardly defend themselves. No room to fight, to run. Even Liam’s wings do not guarantee escape when facing star-folk.

  He cannot believe Arlen sought forgiveness. The man whose family nearly fell to Liam sought his forgiveness. While his mother dripped poison in Liam’s ears—listen to your mother, he thought you a failure—while his his father struck him for simply saying his teacher’s name, Arlen was trying to find Liam. To rescue Liam.

  Dorjan’s gaze falls on Charlotte many times. Liam has no doubt many females have thought Dorjan’s eyes very pretty, his manner entertaining. Dorjan and Charlotte interact with comfortable ease, and such moments make Liam all the more uncomfortable.

  But it is upon his thigh Charlotte’s made her pillow.

  Her breaths are even and small, like a bird. One of her hands balls into a fist—of course it would, it is Charlotte—and it tucks under him, right into
a cut in his trousers.

  “Either you stop staring at me like that, or you punch me and get it over with. Pick one.” Dorjan has one arm drooped lazily over a knee, but his fingers tap quick as a woodpecker. “I’ve had enough drama for one day.”

  A vague hint of roses whispers from the south, from Rose House, surely, so Liam turns to breathe as much as he can. Arlen sleeps still, now upon one of Cairine’s paws, while another blankets him and Aine, who is nestled against Arlen’s chest.

  “You’re not letting her out of River Vine, are you?”

  Liam’s fingertip strokes Charlotte’s neck. He twirls her hair around his thumb. It flickers gold despite the day’s grit. “Why do you care?” His question’s edge slices through the civilities.

  The water-folk pause to click words together. One points at the sky—the North Star, herald of the Celestine’s nightly walk across the heavens, shines above the Wild Grasses between Lake Aranina and the Wall. Dorjan holds up his hand, cuts still raw and angry, to capture the light between thumb and forefinger. “It was bad enough when my parents told Cate she was part of the price for a stake in Treasa Artair’s future princeborn commonwealth. A haven for our kind, or some such tripe Father gobbled down like a rabid dog with a rotten squirrel. Yeah,” Dorjan’s eyes roll towards Liam, “just one of your mother’s plans requires several lives. Arlen’s. My sister’s. Mine too, apparently, though I don’t think I was meant to marry your brother Keller like Cate was. Can’t break up the living princeborn wonder twins.” He brings his fists together with a pathetic bump. “So, we chose to fight them the only way we knew how, being less than a century old. We parted, then ran.” His eyes fall to Charlotte again.