Fallen Princeborn: Chosen

by Jean Lee

Lady Artair gestures at Devyn and the others outside, still digging. At Ember limping into view with an armful of wood while Poppy hops along with a handful of book pages. “We have no doubts that despite challenges posed by the Wall, he’ll usher River Vine into a new age of prosperity.”

  Keller shrugs modestly. “I’ve always liked a challenge.” He leans against the stairwell’s railing...only to have several banisters break under him.

  Lord Artair’s chair falls apart, sending up a vicious wave of spit-addled curse words.

  “Enough.” Lady Artair stomps her heel and snaps her fingers. “You are aligned to the Artair family, Rose House, and you will obey!” A single high note from her ring pierces the air.

  The parlor falls apart.

  The mantle crashes, the table crumbles, the tea set shatters. Every glass vase split in two.

  Only Liam’s chair still stands…though its back falls off.

  Cackling from the dining room—Charlotte, her mouthful of Tootsie Pop. “I told ya, Keller, Rose House don’t like asses—”

  A rush of wind, and Charlotte’s off the ground. Her Tootsie Pop falls and shatters beneath her hovering body.

  Lady Artair’s nails dig into Charlotte’s neck as she holds her with one hand up and off the ground. A sad, low note emanates from Lord Artair’s ring as he rolls himself upright, growling, spitting, “I warned you, girl. I warned you to respect us.”

  Charlotte’s spine pops, ears pop, sinuses pop, brain pops, gut pops. Liam’s voice, slow and slurred, breaks through the popping, the sad singing. “M-Mother? What are you doing? What are you doing what are you doing?” he asks again and again, faster, cutting off his father to stand at Lady Artair’s side and grab her arm. “She saved my life.”

  “She is nothing but a heart of veli with which to heal your hands,” Lady Artair says with a sneer. “Listen to your mother.”

  Liam blinks slowly.

  Oh no you don’t! Charlotte flails her legs and knocks Liam in the gut.

  Liam stumbles back into Keller, leaving a smeared bloody handprint on his mother’s sleeve. This time, his eyes do not fog. “Mother, put her down, or else.”

  “‘Or else’?” Lord Artair growls. “Who is the head of the Artairs? Not you, boy.” He spits the word amid heaving breaths. His sad note moans louder.

  Black tendrils slither into Charlotte’s vision. The Voice runs up from Charlotte’s heart to her neck and pushes back, as desperate for air as she.

  The ceiling of the reception hall begins to crack.

  “You need to put her down,” Keller says quietly.

  Lady Artair scoffs.

  “Look up,” he adds.

  The crack runs rampant throughout the reception hall.

  Keller rips Lady Artair away just before a table-sized chunk of ceiling crashes down. Charlotte collapses, coughs. Liam flies to her side to feel her neck, wrist, cheekbone. “Are you all right?”

  Charlotte pants a “Yes,” and cups his hand in both her own. Fight them, Liam, you can, you will, I believe in you and what you are, not what you were.

  “Let go of me.” Lady Artair slaps Keller without a word of thanks and grabs Liam. “And you. Listen to your mother and let go of her.” She yanks him off in one try.

  Lord Artair looms over Charlotte, his stone ring silent, frog eyes squinty. “What commoner would dare attack us in such a brash manner?”

  “It’s no commoner.” Keller wipes his bloody lip clean. “It’s Rose House itself. It’s protecting Charlotte.”

  Liam rests his hand on Rose House’s floor and murmurs a silent thank you. There’s no pain in the hand, or a bloody print in its wake. The hand that Charlotte held has healed.

  Liam thrust this hand into his back pocket before anyone else can see, but they are too distracted by Charlotte.

  For she has begun to laugh.

  Not the sweet, musical laughter that bubbled up from her heart when she and Liam skipped stones together. This laugh carries a maniacal glee that would do Campion proud. “You, can’t, kiiiiill me,” she crows, “because then, Rose House will fall apart, and your princeborn power pals are gonna see how weak,” she rolls up, “you,” she stares right into Lady Artair’s face, “reeeeally are.”

  Silence.

  Charlotte does her damndest to mimic Uncle Mattie’s nasty grin. See it, Liam, see how weak they are!

  A low sad note—

  “No, Bearnard.” Lady Artair’s motions him to stop. “No. Your son is right. If others see our lack of control on Rose House and River Vine, they’ll never follow our plans to take back the Isles.”

  Lord Artair’s mouth opens and closes, a frog who’s forgotten how to catch a fly. “Surely we cannot allow this foul girl to live, Treasa. She’s done nothing but insult us!”

  “And saved my life.” Liam throws the words in his father’s face.

  “Pah! Anyone could have done that.”

  “I’ll handle her, Father.” Keller’s oozes his caramel-smoothness into the mix. “We’ll get Rose House patched up before the wedding. If she causes me any grief after tomorrow, I’ll kill her.” He sweetens his words with a respectful bow and firm smile.

  He means it, too, the Voice in Charlotte’s heart warns her.

  “I know,” Charlotte mumbles under her breath as she staggers into the dining room and plops down on the glass table, smudging it to blazes. She drops her hand into the Tootsie Pop bowl and roots around without looking. With the Artairs still in the reception hall just outside the red rose arch, Charlotte feels like she’s at the front row of a tiny theater, the family tragedy playing out before her. The kind that ends with a stage of death and epitaphs. Oh Liam…she can’t finish the thought. The air is thick with anger, bloodlust, and scrutiny. It all tastes sour, too bloody sour on Charlotte’s tongue.

  Lord Artair gobbles Keller’s sweetness down in a single gulp. His mouth twists upwards into that sick glee again. “Ah, an excellent first challenge for an administrator, wouldn’t you say, Treasa? There’s always going to be a troublemaker wherever you go. And this one,” His eyes bug out at Charlotte, “can’t go far thanks to her mark.”

  Charlotte shoves another pop in her mouth and waggles her eyebrows. She won’t let them know how much she wants to vomit all over Lord Artair’s stupid suit and Lady Artair’s precious jewelry. All over their faces, so they can’t look at Liam, or talk to him, or just…just not be anywhere near him.

  “Then it’s settled.” Lady Artair brushes at Liam’s bloody print a few times before giving up. “Keller, escort the human around Rose House to make all necessary repairs. Utilize the commoners for wedding arrangements. Bearnard will go to River Vine’s boundary to meet the Alerons. I will escort Liam to his quarters and ensure he is properly prepared to meet his betrothed.”

  “I can dress myself, Mother,” Liam says with quiet indignation.

  “I’m sure you can,” Lady Artair’s eyebrows lift with her voice. “But your mother knows best how you should look for your future bride.”

  It takes all of Charlotte’s willpower not to chuck the lollipop at Lady Artair’s temple. She’s so focused on not simply striking the woman that she doesn’t notice Keller slipping his arm through hers and tugging her off the table. “Let’s begin with the library, shall we?”

  32

  Rope-A-Dope

  Let’s get through this as fast as we can, House. Charlotte jerks herself free and opens the library door.

  Liam’s stained-glass window of stones skipping across the lake maintains its wide array of color. The lounge chairs are back by the massive fireplace of flagstone, just like the exterior of Rose House. The desk is fixed and standing in its place near the spiral staircase. All bookshelves are back to normal—well, not quite normal. They’re not broken by Liam’s book-throwing, for starters, and they don’t seem to contain any of the old non-English books from centuries past. Any debris left behind is in the arms of Lily, a few feet away from where the fireplace wall had been torn, and Remus, hobbling in he
r direction, muttering to himself. “Picking up garbage. Since when does a scout pick up garbage? Grab a few humans, make’em think they’ve found a pirate’s hoard. Good veli and good work done in one fell swoop. But noooo one listens to old Remus.”

  Lily spots Keller and Charlotte first. Her round cheeks flush. “I’m sure the Artairs know best, Remus,” she says from ruby lips with a voice soft as a flower petal, a Disney princess personified.

  Charlotte gags.

  “Blast it, House!” Remus sweeps his leg up in a weak thunk against the wall. “Now I have to walk around to the burn pit!”

  “Easy peasy,” Charlotte says with palms turned upward and an I Dream of Jeannie swivel of the neck. A door of stone swings open on invisible hinges. “How’s that?”

  Remus scrunches a cranky face at her and hobbles through. Lily gives a little nod at Charlotte, but Keller gets a full-on curtsy—not easy with an armful of broken shelves. “You’re Master Keller, yes? Master Liam’s brother.”

  Keller scopes out some shelves. “Just Master,” he says without looking.

  Lily’s doe eyes fall. Rise. Linger. “Of course. Yes, Master.” She bows again and follows Remus out.

  Charlotte closes the rock door, gives it a knock. Just rock again. “Let’s get the upstairs over with next.” Maybe I can give those folks a decent burial, or at the very least a respectful pyre. Killers they were, but I’m not tossing their body parts around like Tootsie Pop sticks.

  “This is…oh wow.” A low, impish chuckle ripples out of Keller as he holds up an old copy of MAD with Alfred E. Neuman’s eyes sticking out of a broken presidential candidate straw hat. The whole shelf—hell, is the whole library full of MAD now? “You got their parody of Dirty Harry?”

  Charlotte’s feet get super, super heavy. No one at her school read the old MAD save for the school librarian…did he have a name? She always thought of him as Husky Man since he had always been covered in dog hair and had pictures of huskies all over his desk. He’d smuggle the discarded copies to Charlotte’s music teacher, and he’d pass them on to her. Too damn often those pages were the only cause for laughter in Charlotte’s shitty life. She never knew anyone to share that humor with, someone who understood. “You…you like MAD?”

  “Are you kidding?” Keller pulls one issue after another off the shelves. “Die-hard reader since the 50s! Lost their way in the last decade but, you know, comic genius rarely lasts forever.” He chuckles again at the sight of Neuman painting a white road with black paint. “We should read through these after everyone’s gone and compare our Top 10s. Come on, you know you have your favorites.” His smile shines sun-bright, a perfect complement to those sky-blue eyes. His bleach smell gives way to something warmer, smoother—rich coffee steaming by a fire on a cool autumn morning.

  Charlotte’s gut flips. She does have her favorites. “I thought I was dead after the wedding.”

  Keller looks over his shoulder to check the library door to the dining room. “Yeah, well…c’mon. You’re not really going to be a problem, are you? Liam finally gets to fly around the world, do all the stuff he’s been imprisoned from for years. Aren’t you happy for him?”

  Yeah, why isn’t she happy for him? Didn’t she see him fly into the air against his mark’s wishes, see his mark strangle him back to earth again and again? Didn’t Liam himself talk about how much he yearns to feel the clouds, to kiss the sky, to kiss—

  LISTEN TO YOURSELF. The Voice slaps Charlotte’s mind into focus. Uncle Mattie always behaved himself out on the town, didn’t he? But you knew better. Do you really think Lady Artair’s control over Liam will end at the wedding, that the boy talk will end when he’s married?

  Charlotte’s mind bobs. Weaves. “Yeah, I’m sure your folks are going to let him do whateeeever he wants.” And in a few long strides she’s at the staircase and clanging upwards.

  But even with the physical space between her and Keller, Charlotte feels knocked off-balance. Never in North Dakota did she meet someone who shared her interests with the same passion. That of all people it would be Liam’s brother, a boy who can treat others like garbage and threaten to kill her…and the fact that when he speaks of his passions she’s drawn to do the same…could he be like Liam, and just need a little light in his life to get him out of the shadow of nastiness?

  Perhaps, but the Voice in Charlotte sounds way more skeptical than hopeful. But for Liam’s sake, you cannot let him corner your logic again. Be the boxer.

  Charlotte nods to herself. Either get off the ropes, Charlie, or pull a rope-a-dope.

  Keller’s feet clang at the bottom of the stairs. “Wait up.”

  Charlotte doesn’t. She boundes into the corridor…only to crash into Ember. They grab each other and manage to stay upright, too eager for quick words. “They do anything to you?”

  Ember shakes her head. “We can’t find Arlen anywhere.”

  Keller appears at the top of the staircase, in view, and now in earshot. His impish smile dissipates into a sneer. “You’re not needed in the library. Go help build the matrignis.”

  Ember says nothing. She only bites her lip, transforms, and flies down the corridor and out.

  Keller crooks an eyebrow at Charlotte. “No way is she a cripple.”

  Charlotte takes one deep breath through her nose. Her fingers twitch behind her back. “Why, cuz she’s able to kick ass and and hunt and other velide-shit despite the fact she’s got a leg that don’t work right thanks to your family’s assholery?” She rolls her eyes and walks the plain corridor towards the landing. The stairwell of Liam’s destroyed art curls up and up like some elementary school’s papier mâché project on steroids. It looks awful. Beaten. Pathetic. Nothing that Liam’s art is meant to be. Woman, have you ever appreciated your son’s imagination? She waits for Keller to notice the repaired walls marking Arlen’s quarters all white-washed, primed for detail. A single white door, locked and knobless, is the only access.

  Keller pushes on the door with his fingertips once, twice. “What about this space?”

  “It’s Arlen’s. Figured he should be the one to handle that bit of Rose House. If we get him now, I bet he wouldn’t mind showing you how he asks Rose House for stuff.”

  Keller gives Charlotte a sidelong glance through narrowed eyes. “He’s rather busy with business from Father. And he’s never liked me, anyway. Few of that generation do.”

  For the first time, the air around Keller doesn’t smell sterile so much as vinegary. Time for a little rope-a-dope, Charlie. “Well. Arlen might be a little too old for the genius of MAD.”

  The vinegar smell vanishes. “True,” he says with a hesitant smile.

  “Maybe we just need the right issue for an introduction. Can always figure out after comparing our Top 10s.” The pairing of them, the we and the our…the pronouns sour on Charlotte’s tongue, but she says them, she has to say them like a boxer plays peek-a-boo to protect the face.

  And Keller’s face can just look so damn kind when he wants it to. “We need to get on that comparison. Tonight! Yes, during the engagement dinner.” He points at Charlotte’s room. “Got any dresses in there?”

  Charlotte snorts. Dealing with dresses and one Artair boy was enough for her, thank you very much. “Yeah, like your parents want me around. And besides, Arlen doesn’t make me dress up to eat.” She turns her attention towards Liam’s glass-cloud doors to the balcony outside the foyer. “Where is he, anyway? Getting fitted for a tux?”

  Keller opens his mouth to speak. Pauses. Wags his finger. “Ah ah ah. You promise to sit with me tonight and save me from a tedious engagement dinner first.”

  The engagement dinner. The bride on her way.

  The muscles in Charlotte’s neck suddenly swell, squeezing bitter spit into her mouth. She leans against the doors, her mind creating pictures of Liam drawing up the copper, painting glass with memory. Even now the door feels warm like his arms as they slept in the Stellaqui’s library, and she could swear the glass is humming against
her forehead. Liam, if you could just fly off alone, I could make myself be happy for you. But not like this…If I could just talk to you about what you really feel, Liam…

  A horrifying shadow whips by the glass doors. Its screech could make a banshee cry.

  Charlotte jumps back, startled, but Keller’s tone startles her more. “Mother. She must see to everything these days.” The words drip slowly, darkly from his tongue, and the vinegar smell smacks Charlotte so hard she’s ready to open the glass doors for air—

  Only there’s another door next to her where wall had been a moment ago. Paint streaks, scuff marks.

  Liam’s studio. Rose House has brought it upstairs again.

  “I thought Liam’s studio was downstairs behind the butler’s pantry,” Keller’s curiosity brings him to the door handle first.

  “Rose House likes moving things around,” Charlotte says, and pushes the door open.

  The long, rectangular room is bare. All the clay, rock, canvas, glass, paint—gone.

  The echo of Keller’s shoes against the hard floor hurts Charlotte’s ears. “This is where it happened, right?” She knows he’s not being that loud, but the emptiness of a room once so full of imagination presses on Charlotte’s temples like a vise-grip. “The stabbing. You found him.”

  Charlotte nods. “The studio was downstairs that time.” She wants to get out of there. It’s all wrong, being in there without Liam, without any piece of Liam.

  “Where was he, when you found him?”

  “She found me in that corner.” In the studio doorway stands a suited, shod figure. The suit’s a tailored fit across broad shoulders. It is black, offset by a crisp white shirt and red tie hanging undone about his neck. The shoes shine like Orna’s eyes when Charlotte first met her.

  Not one curl outlines the figure’s head. The silver speckles that dotted his hair like stars have been cut away for a cropped, formal look. The look of a businessman. Of a powerful man.

  Charlotte’s breath abandons her. Her lips form his name, but she cannot say it, not when he steps forward with heels clacking on the floor, so confined by fancy threads. The only reason she doesn’t call this figure a Liam clone is that the blood dagger’s leather harness, still mottled and stained by the past few days, is strapped over his suit.