He’s dark haired, dark eyes. His brother isn’t. Nor are the twins I’ve seen following them around. “Is it because you look different from them?”
“My mother isn’t the same as theirs,” Renne replied shortly. “That doesn’t matter in the line of succession, but I suppose I’m a reminder of something impure. So if I do anything wrong, they’ll say it’s because of my mother’s blood, because I’m not a true prince.”
The way he spoke and the way his mouth twisted in bitterness all told Maya that this was a sore subject, and he was… sharing it. In spite of herself, however, she found interest in his words. “So you’re a bastard?”
Something shivered in his face. “No. Not according to Albalon’s laws since I can claim the throne.”
“Sorry,” Maya said. “I’m just… guess I’ve been watching too much Game of Thrones.” When his face remained blank and uncomprehending, she continued with, “So, uh, you’re… worried. You’re worried that people don’t see you?”
Now his eyes met hers. They seemed like fathomless black holes. “What makes you say that?”
I… don’t know. But it made sense, somehow. Deep inside, she thought maybe she could understand a little of how he worked. But maybe she was just overthinking it because she felt lonely and homesick. “I suppose as a prince, uh, people don’t see you. People don’t see me, either, really. I’m a student. A friend. A daughter. People tell me what I should be, and my friends think they know me. But I wonder how they know me when I don’t even know myself.”
“Yes,” he whispered, nodding. “Yes, that makes sense. People don’t see me. I know what they want me to be...” He looked away from her at last, a distant expression in his face.
“Maybe they see what I see,” she said.
“And what’s that?”
“A guy with a stick up his ass.”
“I… what?” He made a motion with his hand, as if to swat at her. Outwardly, she grinned, but inwardly, she groaned, because once again, she’d done the thing she always did. She turned a serious topic into something light because she didn’t want to keep thinking about it. It was probably why Charlotte had once referred to her as being as shallow as a kiddy pool and everyone else agreed. “I don’t have a stick up my ass.”
“Sure act like it. You’re always so serious. I don’t think I’ve seen you smile once in all the time I’ve seen you.”
“I smile,” he said, sounding slightly injured. “I smiled earlier.”
“Really? That was smiling? Because it looked like you’d been punched in the face.”
He swelled up, reminding Maya of a frog taking in air to croak. His eyes glinted, and he looked furious. Maybe she shouldn’t insult a prince…? Fuck. “Maybe you should stop making me want to punch myself, then.”
A brief silence enveloped them. Then Mara let out a snorting laugh. “Not bad. Could do with some work, but I’ll take it.”
He smiled, this time for real, letting go of his fake anger. “Yvonne insults me all the time. I’m used to it.”
Maya had been worried for a split second she’d gone too far, and the relief made her laugh longer and harder than she previously intended. When she finally recovered, he indicated that they should head downstairs for breakfast. She followed him, some of her homesickness repelled. But not all of it. She suspected she wouldn’t be able to shake it off for quite a while. But maybe being here wouldn’t be as terrible as she previously thought. It seemed the people here could take a joke after all.
Not so long after breakfast, Artur and Yvonne came to them with the intention of testing the connection between them. They did so within the mansion in a shadowy kind of alcove with far too many cobwebs in the corners.
“It’s important we start figuring out just how this Bond works,” Artur said, in that horrible old person voice he had as if he was constantly on the verge of running out of both breath and life. “It is different for everyone.”
“And it’s clear you have some form of witch-powers manifesting,” Yvonne said, hands on her white-furred hips, where a rather conspicuous bone-belt strung across the fabric. “Otherwise this wouldn’t happen.”
“Seriously?” A multitude of emotions swept through Maya. Alarm. Confusion. Hope. But not too much hope because she didn’t want to dare to the point of stupidity.
Magic?
“Yeah. Let’s give it a try,” Yvonne said with a smirk. “Okay, pony boy – do your thing.”
Artur gave Yvonne a less than amused glance but said nothing to contradict her words. Before Maya’s eyes, Renne’s form sprouted outwards turning everything dark, growing hairs, the clothes melting away into the dark body of a stallion.
A stallion that just so happened to have two enormous feathery wings and a white horn on his head, the only thing white upon the entire body. The horse/unicorn/pegasus thing tossed a velvety black mane and snorted. It resembled the Friesian breed Maya vaguely knew about back home. Sleek, dark, and beautiful.
“Holy shit,” Maya breathed, registering the awesome sight. Yes, she’d just seen someone shift from human to equine. That was a thing. He had wings like a pegasus, a horn like a unicorn. They also went by the name “unicirim.” He stood there like a noble dressage horse as if any moment he’d start with those strange, prancing actions so prized in the sport.
“Touch him,” Artur urged, leaning heavily on a gnarled walking stick. “Get used to him.”
Okay… “Is his mind the same? Can he speak?” She approached apprehensively, noting just how tall this creature was. He’d be a devil if he’d been raised in earthen medieval times, decked out in armor, charging down infantry…
“He retains his mind – not that there’s much of it in the first place,” Yvonne noted, grinning as Renne let out an irritated snort. “But he can’t speak the human tongue, no.”
Another snort blew from his nostrils. Maya placed her hands upon his body wondering if she’d feel that weird electricity thing again or just look like she was groping a horse. He remained perfectly still, a great black beast with feathers so large that some of them were longer than her forearms. She just about reached over his shoulder in height, and she wasn’t exactly short. Am I supposed to ride him or something? With that Bond they keep talking about?
She rubbed just above his left flank, sensing he’d like it there, as there was an unpleasant knot of skin that could do with some loosening. She detected other points in his body as well, casually sliding her palms along to his muscled neck, before she paused.
Wait. How I was I able to sense that? How did I know? She froze, considering it. He felt warm under her fingers. “I… I can feel his body,” she said, then realized how obvious that sounded. She hastily added, “I mean that I can kind of tell what’s wrong with him. Like he has a tight muscle… here.” She rubbed at the base of his neck with the side of her fist, working on de-stressing the muscle. “I don’t know how I know.”
“This is normal,” Artur assured her, though this was the furthest from normal Maya had ever experienced. “You will be able to sense things about one another with the Bond. And, in time, speak to one another just by thought.”
Maya gaped at the wrinkled old man. “He’ll read my mind?”
“Not precisely...” Artur said, though he sounded unsure. “No, when Rayen described it he said that there was an intimate connection between him and his wife. It is why… Bonded are generally better off married. They end up very deep in one another’s souls.”
“Rayen?” Maya continued stroking Renne, testing out what else she felt. As long as he stayed still she remained calm, and started addressing the situation she was in.
“He is Renne’s great-grandfather,” Artur said. “I was but a teenager then, studying. He was the last one to have a true Bond. Magical...” Artur seemed to drift to a faraway place in his thoughts. “Why, they could make storms out of nothing, and the very tides shifted at their bidding.”
“The Storm-King,” Yvonne said. “Artur’s probably the only pe
rson alive now who personally knew him. He’s really, really old.” She examined Artur. “He’s had some good old sips of the waters of life. If I didn’t know any better I’d say he had some magic powers of his own...”
“Yes, yes,” Artur said, now impatient and slightly embarrassed. “Hem. Anyway, if you can sense… this, then young Renne here should be able to sense you right back.”
Maya tried not to whip her hands away from contacting Renne who gave no signs that he did sense her emotions. Or maybe that was why he remained so still…?
Someone potentially tapping into her mind. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to keep going with this. Sure, the idea she might have some power locked away in her intrigued. Everyone on earth at one point wished they had magical abilities. But the longer she remained here, the deeper the connection between her and Renne might develop.
Perhaps the price of magic was too high. But not high enough, it seemed, for Maya to take part in Yvonne’s attempts to help it manifest.
“Now we need to figure out just exactly what kind of magic you have,” Yvonne said, a grin spreading over her face. The alcove of the mansion wasn’t well lit, aside from a stray beam of sunlight that reached through a broken window. Everything about this place was alien to Maya. And now these people expected her to spit out some magic like she’d been doing it her entire life.
“How exactly do you… test for magic?” Maya stopped stroking Renne’s silken mane. “Because I don’t really feel anything special.”
“Easy. You should have shown some leaning towards it even in a non-magical world. See, take me. I’m a good swimmer.” Yvonne patted her chest for emphasis. “Lived by the sea, had an affinity with dolphins, and could hold my breath for six minutes when I dived to the bottom to pick for pearls, at least until I started hunting frogs in the swamp for coin instead. The cold doesn’t bother me much, and my magic was simply a natural extension of what I could already do.” She indicated the makeup smudges upon her face. “Witches like to show what magic they have to others. Now, let me show you some magic…”
Aiding her demonstration, she plucked a waterskin from her bone belt and held her hand over it. Her fingers glowed a light blue, and water weaved out of the top, wrapping around her hand like a floating serpent. “I can take the diseases out of it,” she said. “Shape it to my will.”
Watching the water demonstration sent a shiver down Maya’s back, seeing how Yvonne manipulated the water so that it became a long, spiraling string around her body. Now Yvonne’s smile turned sinister. “People underestimate how deadly it is…”
An unwelcome image of Yvonne lancing the water down Maya’s throat, clogging up her lungs came to mind. She had no doubt Yvonne would be the kind of person to kill people like that. Long, drawn out and suffering, gasping for oxygen and only gurgling water…
“Are you okay?” Artur’s reedy voice cut into her thoughts. “You seem troubled, dear.”
“I…” Maya shook her head, trying not to think about her near drowning. “I can’t really think of anything I’m good at.”
“Hmm.” Yvonne stopped playing with the water, letting it dance back into the container. “You do have magic. You can’t have a Bond otherwise. I’d advise you to think really hard. Otherwise testing you will take a while.”
Feeling foolish, Maya closed her eyes, thinking about her life back home. Well… she was pretty accurate. That was the first and easiest thing to consider.
“Beer Pong,” she said, with a faint smile. “My friends hate me because I’m good at getting the shots.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Yvonne said, “but go on.”
“Uh… I’m good at laser tag. FPS games. I don’t do them much, but I’ve always been good at hitting things. Baseball.” Can’t run for shit, though. “Uh, I did archery for a few weeks and was pretty good at that, too. I never really stuck to anything, though. Always too busy doing other things.” She paused. “I can skip a flat stone pretty far across water.”
She’d once entertained the idea of maybe training for the Olympics or something, or becoming a crack-shot cop, but all of those required additional effort on top of her studying. Funny, now that she really thought about it… maybe she’d been wasting her time. Maybe she should have continued with those archery lessons, or trained for eSports or something. She’d been inspired by Brandon, once upon a time, who loved the FPS games. He loved having her on his team, though sometimes he didn’t like when she outperformed him. Eventually, it’d gotten to the point where he started playing more with other people than her just because he didn’t want to be compared to her – because he wanted to be top in the statistics.
I was fine with it at the time because I don’t really like those games anyway, but… that was actually shitty of Brandon, come to think of it.
Before her mind started plucking apart the threads of her friendship with Brandon further, someone cleared their throat, helping Maya surface from her troubled thoughts.
“I don’t understand half of what you’ve just said, but… you hit things. Okay.” Yvonne cast her gaze around as Artur pulled out a small notepad and started scribbling in it. Spotting what she wanted, she headed to a small pile of rubble and plucked some stones off the ground. “Okay. Let’s find you a target.” Yvonne sighted the broken chandelier above them where only two candles remained, half melted into their holders. “Hit one of those candles.”
Maya took the stone from Yvonne, suddenly dubious. This wasn’t quite like skipping rocks or shooting pixels on a screen, or throwing a ball into a cup. She tested the weight of the rock anyway, tossed it a few times in her hand to see how it fell, how fast it could move, before lashing her arm forward. The rock sailed through the air and smashed into the chandelier, skimming both candles and their brass holdings which shattered onto the ground.
“Huh,” Yvonne said. “That’s… pretty good.”
I didn’t expect that to work so effectively, Maya thought. She’d only been aiming for one candle. If anything, her aim had been off, but it ended up making a spectacle.
“Maybe that’s your talent, kelpie girl. Hitting things.” Yvonne smiled before throwing another stone to Maya. “Let’s get an apple on Artur’s head.”
“I think we’ve demonstrated enough here,” Artur said, mouth tugged down in annoyance. “You and Renne should clop out now. We’ll run some more tests and see how your Bond feels to you. Yes, yes, Renne,” Artur said, when Renne tilted his head. “You can shift back into your normal form.”
Renne melted into his human form, the clothes stuck to his body, having not been affected by the process. “Finally. Okay, so I wanted to say that I could feel that connection when Maya was touching me. You never said that we could communicate via thoughts though, Artur, and you’re the one who is supposed to be the expert.”
“I’m no expert,” Artur said. “I’m just fortunate enough to have been alive when there was a Bonded. That doesn’t mean I know much, just more than you, young man.” He hobbled away from them, leaning on his stick for support, and they followed.
“Doesn’t seem so impressive,” Renne said, regarding Maya, “to hit things. Maybe you’ll be able to do lightning bolts in time…?”
“Doubt it,” Yvonne said, picking her nose with one blunt finger. “But we’ll see. Are you sure, Artur, you don’t want to be used as target practice?”
A grunt was her response. The soldiers’ attentions honed in on their little group, especially on Renne. A few muttered to one another, and Maya couldn’t help but think they might be talking about her. After all, she was the odd one out. The one who didn’t belong. Perhaps some of these men had known the prince and his entourage for years, maybe since he was a child. And she’d arrived… a few days ago, clueless, wearing a mark upon her palm that practically sewed her to the prince. A stranger from a strange land.
A burden.
Renne barked at someone to bring them bows and arrows, and Yvonne suggested other kinds of weapons as well. A small area was
cleared for them near the eastern edge of the forest that surrounded their compound, and several target circles erected. Renne explained they did regular training drills for the soldiers to keep them occupied, and some curious soldiers and merchants began to creep up to see what was happening
which put slightly more pressure on Maya than she wanted. She knew somewhere that these people expected a miracle. She pretended to look deep in contemplation over the bows, seeing the different types, from short recurve to the type that seemed so long that they’d probably take more strength than her body currently possessed to haul back.
In reality, she felt horribly, utterly out of her depth.
They’d want me to fight. If I have signs of a power, I’d need to go into battle.
That was a hard image to swallow. A complete newbie like her, thrust into the middle of what seemed like a decades long war in the making.
“You don’t have much muscle, do you?” Renne said by her ear, followed by a light squeeze of her left arm. “I can’t see you picking up one of those longbows and firing with it.”
Maya forced a laugh out of her mouth. “Yeah, and considering the bow is taller than I am, and I’m no shorty, I’ll give it a pass. Um… I don’t know that much about weapons. Could you help?”
“Sure,” Renne said. “Is your realm warlike, out of curiosity?” He was already picking up bows and testing the weight and draw strength required for each one.
“Well… I guess we are. We’re humans, after all,” she said, enjoying how relaxed and enthusiastic the prince seemed, selecting something for her. Like he’d wanted to do something for her, somehow. “But a lot of us aren’t trained for it. Me included. Some of us don’t touch weapons at all our entire lives.”
“Wow,” Renne said. “That sounds… bad.”
“On the contrary, it’s good,” Yvonne said, muscling into the conversation. She was examining swords and seemed to have particular interest in one with a skull pommel with a central fuller. Naturally. “That’s the mark of a good society if it can raise people without them ever needing to see war. It’s the mark of a troubled one if war is the only way forward. Am I right, little prince?” Yvonne gave Renne a tight smile, which he returned.
The Last Unicirim’s Bride Page 5
