by Lisa Daniels
Thoughts swam through her mind the whole time. Thoughts like how she hoped the guard was conscious now, so he could have time to register his new, hopeless situation. Maybe some of his friends had returned—Zamorkans had that bond, right? More for her to take on.
Luan did the things no one else wanted to do. People hated her for it and hated her by default. But that was okay.
Some people in this world were just not meant to be loved.
Chapter Two – Kerrick
It took him some time to accept he’d been rescued. The days and weeks and months all blurred into one endless nightmare, and at one point, he’d given up ever stepping into daylight again. It was just him and those Zamorkans, whispering their threats, saying what they had forced his father to do, that it was thanks to him that the Six Isles would finally get what they deserved.
Everything, everything… it just never stopped. Until it did. Until that strange woman, with her dark hair cropped short, her eyes blunt and purposeful, her voice no-nonsense, just stepped into his nightmare and yanked him straight out of it.
Now, with a week of recovery, meals and drink down his throat, servants cooing over him, and officer Rus and his storm witch partner determined to keep him safe and secluded, he felt like a shadow of his former self again. He’d shaved off everything that had sprouted out of his face, but he didn’t look the same as before. He was marked, somehow.
“Thanks for the food, Kelsey,” he said with a smile at the storm witch, who returned it tentatively. She had a kind of demure manner about her—someone used to serving others. “What’s the plan for me today? Staying low still?”
“For now,” Kelsey said in her soft voice. “We’re unsure what your reappearance will do. We don’t know the grip the, um, enemy has on the palace. If your father is… compromised.”
Kerrick’s stomach clenched at the thought, but he knew it to be a possibility. “I remember him talking to some Zamorkan magic users not too long before I was… captured.” He threaded his fingers together, staring at his soup and bread. “But then that doesn’t make sense. If he is with them, why pretend that he’s being blackmailed?”
The storm witch’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Do you think your father is capable of such a thing?”
“Yes.” Kerrick began breaking up the bread, taking care not to spill crumbs onto the blankets. “Absolutely.”
His father was not a kind man. Perhaps not cruel, but certainly not the type to win any parenting award. But… he’d broken when Mother died. His oldest son died. He’d become bitter against the people he was meant to rule. Bitter about how things worked, and the numerous laws that chained him to the throne.
Yes. I could believe my own father would lock me up. He’d suspected it when he’d gone so long without being found.
Just never said it out loud. “So…” he stuffed some bread into his mouth. “When’s that air witch coming back? I want to thank her.”
And also see her when I’m not feeling like I’m about to drop into a dead faint.
“Luan’s visiting today, actually,” Kelsey said, one eyebrow quirking upwards. “I’ll be sure to direct her to you if that’s what you’d like.” She seemed to resist the impulse to add a word, perhaps a sir or master.
“I’d like that.”
She took that as her invitation to leave, and did so, bobbing an awkward curtsy on the spot before disappearing. He gave a tiny smile. He was used to servants tripping themselves up talking to him, intimidated by his status. They forgot that there was a living, breathing creature under the prince mantle.
He considered, briefly, how things must have changed since he was kept in that lonely, cold cell. How the court visitors must have simply adapted not to expect him there. How the two women he’d been eyeing had likely moved onto greener pastures—that world was rather at the throat when it came to securing alliances, courtships, marriages. People always adjusted. He imagined striding back into the palace, past astonished guards, tenuously related nobles and servants, heavy footfalls making it into the throne room, where his father sat on a gilded chair draped in shadows, one fist pressed against his chin as he leaned—his father’s favorite position when enduring the sheer number of officials and complaints in his throne room each day. He saw the blond and red-streaked advisors on either side of his father, hovering like vultures, hissing their poisons in the king’s ears.
With it came a very real dread that if Kerrick attempted to return home, he’d be locked up again. That his father was the reason he ended up in that lonely cage for months, years, for all he knew.
Unless he challenged his father for the throne.
Kerrick gripped his mug so tightly that he almost shattered it in his hands then and there. Releasing pressure at the last second, he exhaled and turned towards the person who had just walked in.
Instantly, he brightened.
“Hey,” Kerrick said, eyes finally meeting the air witch’s, whom he had only seen in a fog the last time. “I just wanted to thank you for helping me.”
Her eyes were dark and cold, hard like the lines on her face. Yet there was a beauty about her. A diamond in the rough, with her short, black hair, her slender body. His eyes absently traced her heart-shaped jawline, her smooth neck, the tapered shell of her ear.
“Consider me thanked.” She nodded curtly at him. “Seems like you might be stuck here for longer, though. Not the safest out there right now.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” Kerrick admitted. “Long as I get to stare at people like you.”
Her brow furrowed in slight confusion. “What do you mean?”
He took a few strides closer to her and was able to pick up on her strong, spicy aroma. Like her skin had been dusted with cumin, giving a kind of heat to her scent. A smell that appealed to him, made him flare his nostrils slightly, just to tug in a little more of her.
“I mean… staring at pretty women. Like you.” He was now starting to regret his line of questioning. He was supposed to have charm. He was supposed to be smooth. This was the opposite of smooth. This was a disaster.
She let out a derisive laugh which startled him. “You think I’m pretty? Might need to get yourself some glasses, because your eyes aren’t working too good.”
Rather than be dismayed by this, Kerrick simply folded his arms, regarding the woman in front of him with more interest. “You’re not used to being flirted with, are you?”
“There’s good reason for that. I don’t date,” she said, looking bemused, as if she wasn’t quite sure why she was following through with this conversation. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have somewhere to be...”
“Shame,” Kerrick said. “Wouldn’t mind getting to know you some more. Understand the woman responsible for hauling me out.”
Something unfathomable flashed in her eyes. “Yeah, that’s not happening. Trust me—people don’t want to know.”
“I do.”
She simply shook her head, giving him a curt wave before leaving the room. Kerrick was tempted to follow her, but he didn’t want to come across as a stalker during their first real interaction.
Someone like Luan wasn’t really his type. His type were women of the court, with their finery, their etiquette, their long family histories. He was expected eventually to marry, and once he did, a prince would never divorce. Not without some big public drama pelting their way. Somehow, though, he’d managed to avoid the responsibility, joining parties, balls, courts, dating different women, sinking his flesh into those women as well… but never quite settling for anyone.
Luan, however, provided an entirely new venue for him. Someone who didn’t care for that world. Someone who served the law, who used her magic in dangerous ways, who had a glint in her eyes that suggested she had seen death and walked alongside it as a friend.
The most familiarity the prince had with death was from when his mother died during a state visit to Serpent Isle, and the executions his father oversaw, though Kerrick had never seen the executions—jus
t watched the criminals being led away to the chopping block. She came from a completely different world, and it excited him on a level.
A challenge. Regardless of the result, he did want to get to know the air witch a little better. He was in the habit of rewarding those who helped him.
* * *
The next time she visited, she went straight to talk with Perran Rus in his study, and when she emerged from it, her face was taut and worried. Kerrick, trying out a strange herbal tea at the time, approached her, determined to know the matter for himself.
“Luan, a word with you.”
The air witch shot him a look of annoyance, but followed him into the kitchen, which was currently empty. “What do you want?”
“Is it trouble with the group who captured me? I just want to know.”
Another calculating stare from the air witch. Her lips tightened, as if determined to seal the words within, but Kerrick stood his ground. She might be the officer on the case, but he was a prince.
“It is. We… I have dealt with three of the people who kidnapped you, but none of them divulged any information that can help us. Then officers of the law began sniffing around, and I had no choice but to leave the bodies. Now they’re on the lookout for a suspect—and if they find out our division had anything to do with it… let’s just say it won’t be pretty.”
“Off the books, are you?” Kerrick was surprised. He assumed that the law had been working to find him independent of his father. “You weren’t supposed to be looking for me?”
“No,” Luan admitted, her lips twisted in a sardonic smile. “Finding you was entirely our own idea. We figured there was corruption in the police itself, since attempts to investigate you kept getting mysteriously shunted aside or given to task members that we’ve long suspected of being bent and letting certain petty criminals free. Can’t voice that out loud, though. Not unless we want ourselves kicked out.”
“Skies,” Kerrick whispered. “That’s…”
“Shit,” Luan said bluntly. She paced up and down in agitation, though Kerrick couldn’t tell why. Worried she’d overshared? Or angry at her inability to do something when the system worked against her?
“You would be pardoned instantly if you turned up at the throne with me,” Kerrick suggested. “I’d be surprised if they didn’t bend over themselves trying to pat your task force on the back.”
“We’re considering it,” Luan admitted, ruffling a hand to the back of her hair. Kerrick noticed the faint black etching of a tattoo on her wrist, and he was struck with a sudden curiosity to see the rest of it. But first things first. “But we still don’t know how deep the corruption goes, or if the king himself will be in danger if we show up with you. And what if we turn up with you and they just haul us away on the spot?”
“Easy. Get me to an area where there’s so many people, that no one can possibly protest me returning to the palace.”
“Like where?” Luan’s eyes searched the prince’s face. “What do you suggest?”
“A ball. A place where all the rich people gather, with so many witches and dragons that the enemy would be insane to even attempt something. I assume balls are still being held on Azarus?”
Luan chewed her bottom lip, and Kerrick’s attention drifted to the movement. “We’ll check into it. We don’t make a habit of attending balls, as you can imagine...”
“There’s usually a seasonal one,” Kerrick said, running through all the times he’d been in his head. Ones held for holiday events, the king’s birthday, celebrating when the floating isles first established the rule of law… “If you haven’t been lying to me about the date, then we should have the winter ball in four days’ time. Biggest event of the year, people turn up in their best clothes, drink incredibly expensive wine and make fools of themselves. Usually the king attends as well.”
The air witch was nodding. “Yeah… okay. Sounds like an actual plan. We better get you to Perran, then. Doesn’t make sense to leave you out of your own idea.”
Kerrick grinned. Luan gestured at him to follow her, and he placed down his tea, examining the nape of her neck as they headed to Perran’s study. The older dragon listened to Luan and Kerrick with a blank expression upon his face, and when the suggestion was finally out, Perran sighed and rubbed his nose.
“Seems like we’re running out of options. Certainly can’t keep hiding you in my house forever, and people might connect the dots with how the victims were asphyxiated and go after Luan. She does have a very distinct… style.”
“I was careful,” Luan protested. “I’m not an idiot.”
“You get carried away,” Perran replied.
“I do not. I’m a professional.”
“So, are you going to do it?” Kerrick cut in, before the two started bickering further. He sensed they tended to do this quite a lot, since Perran seemed like someone who liked things to go smoothly, and Luan was the sort who probably threw dynamite into a bar to get it emptied. Result over method.
“Probably. We just need to figure out how to sneak you to the winter ball without being seen on the streets.”
“Dragon,” Kerrick replied. “I’m a gray. Most of us look similar. Plus, dragons get an automatic invite to the ball. If you guys are on my back, then no one should bother you.”
Luan’s mouth split into a devious smile. “Seriously? Going to a ball on the back of a dragon?”
“There’s much you don’t know about us fancy rich people, it seems.” Kerrick gave her a warm smile back, and she blinked, before letting out a snort.
“I’m still concerned you will be recognized,” Perran said. “There will be people who know what you look like as a dragon.”
“Then we can ride on you,” Kerrick said. “Simple. You’re a dragon, too.”
Perran fell silent at that.
“Fantastic,” Kerrick said, as if the matter was already decided. “Would you care to come with me to the ball?” He gave an exaggerated bow towards Luan, stretching out one hand. When he glanced at her, he caught the heavy roll of her eyes, a small smile playing at her lips.
“Are you going to continue to be this pushy?”
“Why not?” Kerrick said with a shrug. “Will give you an excuse to dress pretty.”
“I’m not getting in a dress,” she said.
“If you’re going to the ball, yes, you are.”
“I’m not going.”
“You’ll need to go,” Perran said, and dismay hit Luan’s face. “You’re the only agent who I trust can thoroughly protect herself in my task force.”
“Yeah, sure,” Luan said with a snort. “I can count on one hand the number of people who’d be pleased to see me there. I wasn’t a popular girl at the academy.”
“Why not?” Kerrick’s eyebrows pricked upward in interest.
“I’m a little too good at killing,” she said, and that was the end of it. Her body language closed in, and she turned away from Kerrick, addressing Perran exclusively. “Do I have to go? Really?”
Perran gave her a tight-lipped smile. “I’ll get Lady Vash and Natalie to help out with clothing for you. And potentially be guests with us as a buffer.”
Luan’s fingers twitched, as if she wanted to wrap them around Perran’s throat and squeeze. However, Kerrick was well aware of how she could strangle someone with just a careful snatch of their breath.
“Make sure you get a matching outfit for me as well,” Kerrick said, grinning at the filthy look Luan shot his way.
This one would be very, very fun to tease. If she didn’t kill him first.
Chapter Three – Luan
She hated having the dream. The one that showed her mother and father eating at a picnic table on a day filled with fog. A few years after the fall of Serpent’s Isle. They stared at her with hate and bewilderment, and it broke her heart.
“You’re not supposed to be like this,” her father had whispered. She’d failed all her academic grades but caught the eye of the police. One of the tests they ga
ve people was to test how they behaved when it came to attending an execution. Test how they behaved if they needed to do the execution themselves.
She’d happily, without remorse, slain the criminal. She also happily, and certainly without a shred of guilt, extracted information from a man who was abusing a child. Something about watching these despicable, vile human beings suffer gave her a great kick in the gut with excitement.
Her parents didn’t find fault with her killing people. Officers of the law did so by necessity, if they couldn’t bring someone into jail first. If it wasn’t a kill-on-sight bounty.
No, they hated the fact that she liked it.
“Why shouldn’t I like it?” Luan had challenged him. “Wouldn’t it be better to put someone in a job they like, then force someone to do something they don’t want to do, and ensure they suffer from trauma from their actions?”
“You’re supposed to be a lady,” her mother had said. “You’re supposed to marry one day and have children. Who would want to be with a killer like you?”
Their voices always merged and bayed until they drowned out all sense and reason, and Luan woke up in a sweat, a sick feeling in her gut and a heavy sense of unfairness for her parents’ attitudes. Luan didn’t do anything wrong. The police wanted her. It was her calling, her life. And yet they thought her a monster.
Maybe they weren’t far off the truth. Luan had seen the way other people regarded her. How she did her job just a little bit too well, shed no tears, and smiled when they gave her a new task, a new criminal to hunt. The only division that really accepted her was Perran Rus, and he was a downgrade from her original one. Given how he treated her, though, she considered it a distinctive upgrade from her former colleagues.
Monster. Luan wiped at her face and caught a solitary tear offending her skin. Usually it didn’t bother her, but those were her stronger days, when she could deal with anything. It was the weak days, the doubting days, when she wondered if everyone else was right, and their caution towards her justified. Should have been married. Should have been a lady. Should have tried to disguise how much she enjoyed being on the right side of the law.
