Fallen Princeborn: Chosen

by Jean Lee

  The Voice in Charlotte’s heart shuts her mouth, though it says nothing.

  Devyn directs everyone but Nettle to carry the herbs over. Though his hands are covered with blisters from the burns from the Pits, he still helps Dorjan strip Liam down. Charlotte shifts to stay out of Devyn’s way. “This boy’s seen enough abuse for a lifetime.” He curses in Mawdre, teeth grinding.

  “Ten lifetimes.” Charlotte clasps the blood dagger to her chest, the stained-glass memories spinning in her mind.

  “Who was it who breathed life into Liam and brought him out of his living decay?” Arlen asks her as he lays the herbs upon Liam’s clammy skin. “You. Who holds the deadliest piece of him yet is never burned? You.”

  “But you said that was part of the curse with the blood dagger, the ‘purest of hearts’ stuff.” Charlotte’s hands tremble, waiting for Dorjan and Devyn to be done so she can return to Liam’s side. “How the hell can I help heal magical people who live eons when I become worm food after a few decades?”

  “Don’t forget, you’ve got some of that eon-blood in you now,” Dorjan says with a poke at her shoulder. “Liam’s blood transfusion after you fought for your sister. Whatever’s in you, I bet his blood’s boosted it along.”

  “Even that doesn’t explain why Liam’s needed less and less veli to thrive.” Arlen’s fingers trace the lightning’s scar as he ponders. “I was shocked he healed as well as he did after fighting Bearnard in the Pits. But I think it’s because you called for him, Charlie. You were still together.”

  Ember picks up a few stray buds of comfrey. Her gaze shifts from Devyn’s hands to Charlotte’s face. “Have you two ever been apart?”

  Charlotte brushes a bit of sand away from Liam’s cheek as her own mind rewinds. Save for a few hours to sleep or bang on the piano, they had always been together. No wonder seeing Liam with the others, knowing he’d leave, she’d felt so, so damn lonely.

  “Liam no longer needs veli because he needs you,” Arlen says as he takes Charlotte’s hand. “Once his mother pulled him from you and all hope of seeing you was lost, Liam’s strength began to dim, and fighting his family doused his embers.” Arlen guides Charlotte to place her hands and the blood dagger upon Liam’s chest. “When you first came to River Vine, you breathed a fearless love into him. Suddenly he could work magic even after bleeding a hundred years of life away. A few days with you, and he’s summoning ore from the earth and fighting demons who’ve ruled his life for ages.” He looks upon them both with a gaze lit by summer’s stars. “That, Charlie, is magic.”

  “So…” The ashen skin of Liam’s chest is so cold and unreal. All the yarrow and comfrey strewn over his body remind her of the aster flowers she placed on little Samuel Blair’s body when they buried him—Charlotte grits her teeth, wildly shakes her head to make the thought go away. “I just need to perform CPR again?”

  “Oh, would you just shut up and kiss him already?!” Dorjan says in a huff.

  Charlotte glances around. There’s only a mob of scouts, a giant star lady person, and her honorary big brother and uncle staring at her. That’s almost private.

  And of all things to run through her mind, it’s this: What if I’m a lousy kisser?

  Maybe Arlen catches the nervousness on Charlotte’s face, because he stands and guides Devyn towards Ember, who’s holding the last bit of comfrey for Devyn’s hands.

  “Kissing?” Poppy makes a face. “Kissing is boring, I wanna see more light battle stuff, pow pow, and the stars go crrrrsh and the princeborns go neeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwarrrYEOW COLD COLD COLD!” Poppy poofs into a mouse and scurries away from Disraeli’s reformed hand and towards Rose, who refuses to pick her up.

  “You had that coming.”

  If a mouse curses, it’d likely sound as Poppy did just before she takes off into the trees.

  “You.” Disraeli the giant star-lady tinkles a few feet away with a finger pointed at Dorjan. “You with eyes of the seasons, of summer and winter. I will speak with you.”

  Dorjan’s green eye twitches. “Been a while since someone’s called them that.” Nevertheless, he follows her a little way down the shore. Willow casts a furtive glance at his back before yanking Reed by the collar towards Nettle and a few scouts watching the Celestine in the sky and the Stellaqui guards circling in the water. Peat flies off “to take a look around,” he says. The last, like Judoc, gather around Arlen to watch him heal Devyn’s hands.

  All that just takes a moment, leaving Charlotte on her own with Liam.

  At first, Charlotte’s certain this is worse.

  Shut it, Charlie, you stuck your lips on him when he was all bearded and bloody and covered with years of dust. You can handle this. Just don’t slobber on him.

  Charlotte does her damndest to swallow back the nerves, and bends in so her lips touch the arch of Liam’s ear. “I know you’re listening in there. You can’t snuff out yet, not when there’s a future worth fighting for right here,” she squeezes his hand and the dagger upon his chest. “I didn’t get what made a future great at first. I thought it was all about bright lights and showing off so no one could see the real me. I didn’t even wanna see the real me. But you saw it. And I see you, Liam, and I love all of you. You hear me?” Her forehead kisses his, her tears their own rain upon his eyelids. “You’ve got me every day, now and always, cuz you’re worth fighting for. Now get back here so I can tell you I love you, you dodo.” And she kisses him.

  The warmth begins in his lower lip. It quivers, moves. The upper lip follows. She feels him pull in her breath, and his fingers beneath her own twitch and tighten about the blood dagger with strength. She presses her lips into his a little more, and her tongue discovers the sweet warmth inside his mouth. He moans into her as sparks dance down the blade’s feathers and ignite the flowers into ribbon after ribbon of flame rippling down his body.

  When the herbs are ash Charlotte pulls back. She has to. She needs to see the rain wash the ashes away and show healed joints and mended bones. His feathered scars remain along one side of his body, but they run down his skin like lightning in the prairie skies.

  Like the lightning in Liam’s paintings, in his eyes.

  Open now and focused solely on her.

  “There you are,” she says, and smiles.

  “A dodo, am I?” he says, and smiles back.

  “Sure, hear that part. Now put some pants on, or I ain’t sayin’ another word.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “That’s Charlie to you.”

  “You said another word.”

  “Gah!” Charlotte rolls up to her feet and stands facing away from Liam. Pretty sure that’s what she’s doing. She’s not quite sure where her feet went, or the ground, or much else but her heart that soars through the clouds, drinking rain and laughing. Love’s laughter tastes even better than Arlen’s baking.

  “By Aether—LIAM, slow down!” Arlen’s shocked voice sets Charlotte spinning—first, because Liam’s pulled out his blood sword and slices it clean through a maple’s trunk, and second, because the extensive branches nearly crash down upon Captain as she breaches Aranina’s surface. Her sea-scream blasts the top half of the maple to such tiny smithereens it feels like it’s snowing leaves.

  Cursing ensues, followed by some human-telligble speech: “And if that happens again, Charlotte, so help me—”

  “I did it.” Liam hops onto the trunk. His shirt hangs open beneath his harness, where those heaven-help-Charlotte abs glimmer with sparks beneath the skin. His chest heaves deep, even breaths. Not a blossom of bruise to be found. Wow-eyes set to stun and take no prisoners, GAH Charlie STOP—hang on. Know what? Ain’t stoppin’. Ever.

  “I think someone’s feeling better,” Nettle says as she plucks a scrap of burning yarrow to light her pipe.

  Liam yanks the log. Just, takes one end, and spins it like a coke bottle so that the whole length of it is on the land. Amazing that Remus is the only one whose legs get knocked out in the process. “Not conscious for fi
ve minutes, and already he has to knock us commoners to the ground!”

  “Quiet, you old tomcat,” Devyn says with that almost-smile flickering on his face. “He knows what he’s doing.”

  “Which is what?”

  Devyn glances at Ember, and though no one would ever dare corroborate, Charlotte’s certain he blushes.

  Liam jogs to the lake’s edge, hand outreached to Captain’s fin-arm. “You’ve come at the perfect time. Be a witness.”

  Captain double-blinks and let out a low, skeptical whistle. “Sure, but only because I’m curious.”

  All watch Liam drive his blood sword into the maple trunk. It bursts into an eye-like shape, an eye of a million embers warm and golden in the rain. The smell of maple rises with the steam, and the air smells of breakfast, home…

  Family.

  Disraeli tinkles and crashes closer. “Water douses fire, does it not?”

  “Most normal fires, certainly.” Arlen’s got a grin the likes of which mirrors Charlotte’s own, Liam’s own. “But this is different.”

  Liam brings the sword back to a dagger while Dorjan waves at the embers. “What the deuce is this, and why are you all smiling like ninnies?”

  “A matrignis, Cousin,” Liam calls him, the familial term sweet on his tongue. “For a girl and her dodo.” The feathers of his scar curve with his face as he smiles, shyly, as if Charlotte might not step on the embers to join him, the warmth beneath her feet nothing like the fire in her chest to see him smile, alive, really alive.

  Captain rests her spear across her shoulders. “Didn’t think dodos married gill-less meatbags,” she says with a whistle.

  Charlotte gives a half-assed “Shut up” before she jumps onto the embers. With Liam’s hands finding hers, the smile all for her, the Imp the Friend the Joy the Love, all for her…

  Dorjan unleashes a laugh. “You know, Uncle, as self-declared kin of the bride, I feel like we should be giving our permission or something. Don’t you think she can do better? Just look at that haircut, not to mention his lack of consideration for the pec-less.”

  “Dorjan!” Arlen flicks his nephew in the ear. “This happens to be an important occasion.”

  “All right all right! But I refuse to get squishy about it.”

  Arlen rolls his eyes, calls to his other nephew inside the matrignis. “Do you know the words?”

  “Some, but not all. If you start, I know we can follow. But first…” Liam holds Charlotte’s marked wrist up and touches it with his blood dagger. “First this. River Vine’s drunk enough blood these past few days that it should no longer require yours.” Sparks hop from the dagger tip into the mark. Its ink curls as a burning leaf until it the mark falls completely away, leaving Charlotte’s skin bare. “You can stand right next to the Wall now without injury. But do not cross it. That will return you to the world’s memory.” He does not mention her old family.

  Charlotte bites her lip. Not having Aunt Gail or Anna here, or even her mom, it…yeah, that hurts a little.

  Don’t. The Voice tugs back the doubt. Not yet. You’ve not the strength alone.

  But if Charlotte can bring a new family with her to show her mom there’s so much more than that damn molding life… “We cross together,” she says, resting her hand on Liam’s arm now marked by two curses. “Cuz I’ll be damned if I leave you anywhere.”

  Liam’s lips can’t find hers fast enough. The blood dagger’s still held between them, each a hand upon its hilt, and when Arlen begins to speak, Liam runs his other hand along the dagger’s edge. Charlotte does the same without being asked, and their bloodied hands fold together. The blood drips into the embers beneath them, and a vine begins to grow, slender and emerald as a summer’s eve, winding slowly around them with buds opening to reveal white roses pale and magical as a star’s smile.

  Arlen’s Gaelic moves as a song, stirring the embers beneath Charlotte and Liam into flames golden and gentle. Liam pulls back just enough to repeat the vows, with Charlotte’s own echo overlapping his. Two wings of fire unfurl from the dagger to wrap around Liam and Charlotte, and when the last vow is spoken they kiss again beneath the cover of fire and life, with every Breed of Aether as witness.

  49

  Let’s Split Up, Gang

  They hear the first roar when they enter the orchards.

  With Disraeli and the other Celestine gone before dawn, Willow leading some of the commoners back to the Blair Farm (in case of “Atomic Artair Meltdown,” as Dorjan put it), Captain too dried out to remain above water any longer, and Charlotte ready to eat tree bark to sate her hunger, they use the last couple of dark hours to cross the northern quarter, where the pine trees give way to a narrow grove of maples, which then give way to the orchards. Charlotte grabs the first peach she sees and devours it down to the pit in seconds. Dorjan’s about to follow her example when the roar erupts.

  A roar like that could only be one of two princeborns—Bearnard, or Keller.

  Lily the doe starts, causing otter Judoc to fall off her back and onto Devyn’s foot. Bird Ember gives her a thorough ear-pecking for the stumble and flits off to scout.

  “Mac an donais, I thought the cowslips would last until we addressed the wedding guests,” Liam says, hand instinctively reaching for Charlotte’s.

  Dorjan quickly wipes peach juice from his nose and smells. “I still smell them, too. Even your minty freshness, nice touch.”

  Charlotte sniffs the air, too. Pales. “It’s Keller. That bleachy smell of his.”

  Arlen leans against the peach tree, deep in thought despite Poppy the mouse climbing up and down his boots. “This complicates matters.”

  Devyn plucks Poppy up and holds her in his cupped hands. “The plan can still hold.” Ember zips by in silence and lands between them. “Your brother’s ego will see to it.”

  Transformation’s cloud has hardly begun to settle before Ember speaks. “I saw only four princeborns foreign to me.” Words fly as fast as she in battle. “Two with Lord Artair, one with Lady Artair and the girl Aleron, one with the boy Aleron.”

  Hurricanes swell in Liam. He can feel them build up beneath his inner wings—but he needs to contain that power, not release it. Who could be present? But it has been so bloody long, I can hardly remember the Houses’ bestial forms...no. Focus now, Liam, on the creatures you do know. His body shakes as he brushes a few shriveled apple petals from the ground and spreads his fingertips out to check for vibrations. Nothing at first—then there, a slow, steady lurking. “Keller prowls outside. Still in the clearing, by the feel of it.”

  Arlen takes a deep breath, exhales through his nostrils. “Are we near enough to Rose House for you to make a door, Charlie?” She nods. “Good. I’m changing the plan. A bit, at least.”

  “Now?” Ember purses her lips, shares a worried glance with Devyn. “Sir, are you sure that’s wise?”

  “There are three stone rings and three blood daggers already in play.” Arlen flexes his hands. His wedding ring reflects a single ray of dawn’s light before vanishing again. “We expected to face at least some unknowns with our one tested blood dagger, but four more stone rings as well as blood weapons? No.”

  Judoc rubs the leg twisted from his fall off Lily. “The Celestine,” he says. “Can we hide out until nightfall, wait for them to show up and help?”

  A bird of prey cries—no eagle, to be sure, like Liam or Treasa Artair. It’s weak, sloppy. Arlen stares into the distance from where the cry came and shakes his head. “I can promise no more than Disraeli, and one Celestine won’t be enough to face ten princeborns.”

  “Nah, all ya gotta do is sic Poppy on them,” Charlotte says with a pointed finger at the little squeak-filled creature. “She’s…fun.” Her sarcastic smile says something else.

  Devyn’s eyebrows rise. “It is an option.”

  “Yes, yes!” Dorjan taps his nose, pointing to Ember. “And in the midst of all our pomp and circumstance, a little bird can whisper Mawdre into curious ears.”

&nbs
p; Ember giggles.

  It is as unsettling a sound as one can imagine.

  Liam looks over his shoulder and says, “Keller’s moving this way.”

  Arlen rubs his hands on his thighs and kneels next to Charlotte. He makes a cutting motion with his right hand to Devyn. “Flank and support. Dorjan and Liam, front.” No one hesitates. Deer Lily bounds off. Judoc remains a person to run. Devyn lets Poppy loose and changes to fly off with Ember. Once the mouse-squeaks fade Arlen says, “Now, Charlie and I must smuggle ourselves onto the second floor. I’ve something to retrieve. Dorjan, Liam…” He chews on whatever he’s about to say. “Be safe.”

  Dorjan’s green eye glows wickedly. “Like we’re ever anything else.”

  Charlotte grabs a fistful of grass and lets loose a steady stream of whispers to the house for a door and tunnel back. Petals from the pear tree above them catch in her hair, and she tucks a lock behind her ear before it falls into her mouth.

  Liam takes in every petal, every touch of color returning to Charlotte’s cheeks. I will recreate this moment. They will not take my art away from me again.

  Charlotte opens a trap door with grass for a handle. “You first, Arlen.” She practically falls over herself to grab Liam’s collar. “Don’t let Dorjan do anything stupid.”

  “Hey!”

  Charlotte’s kiss is quick and urgent, but the love behind it fills Liam’s belly in a heartbeat. The vibrations strengthen, causing fruit to drop from their branches. Charlotte snatches a pear as she slides into the trap door, grabbing the roots to slam the grass door shut.

  The two princeborns walk towards the thundering ground, both munching on peaches. “It’s funny,” Liam says, tucking his free hand into his pocket. “I’d forgotten the simple joy of plucked fruit in the morning.”