It’s like you’ve just forgotten what we argued about, she thought with a sudden flare of anger. However, his words seemed fueled by that personal resentment somehow. She felt it burning inside him, ugly and contorted compared to the pleasant, handsome face worn on top of it. Somehow he was desperate for them to perfect the magic, the Bond. She didn’t understand why, but she at least sensed it was important to him, so she swallowed her impulse to push him away.
“Maybe later. Once Yvonne’s spoken to me, and I understand what kind of power I have. I don’t want to lose control.”
The ugly emotions increased. “You don’t intend to speak to Yvonne. She told me what you said.”
“Good,” Maya replied, belligerent. She swallowed her grapes, appetite now draining out of her.
“Are you going to keep avoiding this? Honestly, if I ended up getting sudden magical powers, I’d want to know more about them.”
This wasn’t avoiding. “This isn’t my fight, Renne. It’s yours. I’m not even supposed to be here.” Her hands balled into fists, resting against the cool table.
“That’s not how a Bond works. When it happens – that’s a clear sign you’re meant to be with that person,” Renne said, smiling without teeth. It looked cruel. “Considering that we both have Bonded, I can confirm that you definitely have some purpose here.”
“I have purpose back home, too,” Maya snarled, her anger intensifying, whipped up by Renne’s annoyance. “University, parents, friends, prospects. All which are now on hold. I have a mother who’s worrying herself sick over my disappearance. And I can’t even tell her I’m alive.”
Renne snorted, disdainful, in the manner of one who didn’t care. “I’m the prince and future king of a nation. I’m not allowed to do anything except look pretty, unless I can prove I’ll be far more useful in battle than watching from the sidelines. The fate of an entire kingdom is more important than whatever life you led back home.”
Maya almost choked on her anger. Something began to glow coal-hot in her stomach, and the power transferred to the table she now touched.
“You know,” he said, acting as if he didn’t notice the table warming up under his arms, “I’m supposed to marry you.”
The rage and indignation puffed out of her, as if someone had thrown a bucket of icy water over her. The fuck? “What?”
“People are laughing about me behind my back,” he continued, his dark eyes slits, “talking about how I’m disrespecting centuries of tradition by not announcing our marriage. That it proves our Bond is sinful because we’re forging a connection, but we’re not legal.”
“We’re –” Maya’s voice came out as a squeak, “we’re supposed to marry?” Why had he chosen now, of all moments, to share this information?
“Yes. It’s demanded, since a Bonded forms a stronger connection than even a normal married couple would. Having sex out of wedlock is bad but so is sharing your soul in this manner.” He drew in a deep, stiff breath. “I figure you wouldn’t appreciate that.”
Married. They expected her to marry a stranger?
But he’s not so strange, a voice whispered in her head. You’re able to sense him in ways no one else can.
It also sounded like one of those awful marriages that happened in some countries. When a man took a woman out of wedlock, people demanded for him and her to be married because of the shame. That thought made her blood boil. They considered this… Bond to be something similar? She traced the white spiral with her unmarked hand, feeling the heat of stress building up in her head, and the start of a headache.
“What’s the worst they’ll do to you or me if we don’t… marry?” She had to know. The ghastly image of being stoned flooded her mind. These were primitive people. Maybe they’d do primitive things.
“The worst for people of my status, to a witch…? I could lose my right to the throne due to huge unpopularity from our people. For unicirim who are nobility, or, very rarely, civilians… I’d say they’d be exiled.”
Well, that did sound better than being stoned to death. “There’s more of you guys in the armies?”
“No,” Renne said. “No unicirim in the five armies except us royals. If there are survivors from River’s End, they might be lying low, pretending they’re normal humans or isolated in the deep woods to the far west of River’s End. I’d pity the fools living there.”
“I assume you hope to find more of your unicorn people.”
He nodded, not noticing or caring how she’d described his people. “Hopefully. Even if they’re just flying troops they’ll be better than nothing against the dragons.”
The mood between them relaxed. “Will you need to marry me?” She had to know. She didn’t like the idea, but at the same time, she didn’t plan to be in this realm forever. Maybe it could work. At least to ensure a better status for herself.
And… well. She could think of worse people to marry. They didn’t need to have sex when married, did they? It just needed to look legitimate to the public eye.
“Perhaps,” he said. “I can brush it off for a while longer, but… people will start getting twitchy about it.”
Staring into the prince’s annoyingly handsome face with that rounded jawline, the black, partially wavy hair, the snug nose, and those long eyelashes which gave him a hooded, almost lazy appearance… she tried to imagine herself married. She’d imagine a prince to look like this. If she’d known him as a celebrity in her world, his poster might have been pinned up in her room as a teenager. Probably.
She didn’t want to give him any confirmation about it yet, that she might be okay just for helping him out in this manner. “Thank you. I appreciate you risking your uh, reputation over this.”
He gave her a small but genuine smile. “Thank you I suppose for not running away and screaming when I do mention it, though.”
“Yeah...” She grinned, before giving him a hard stare. “So what’s a girl got to do for entertainment around here?”
They did have some entertainment. A game that involved flicking pebbles into a bowl. Accuracy challenges, which Maya won a little too easily, and which Renne’s guards found amusing to no end. They didn’t seem to see her as a woman who could suddenly do party tricks – they just tried to beat her scores, or gave her appraising, almost fearful looks. No, they didn’t underestimate her at all. Renne also provided a card game, though the cards were all thin slivers of wood with etched paintings on them of symbols nothing like the cards she knew. They played with a deck of eighty cards, five factions, and five turncoats. Pictures of unicirim, knights, werewolves, dragons and royalty adorned the covers, and she saw quite a few soldier groups playing with these decks in the taverns and public benches on offer.
One game that she did relate to was when Callum, Tara, Janus, and Yvonne got together, and Janus proposed a game of “Factions”, where they needed to empty their hands first, and the only cards they could rid in their hands were whatever connected to the Middleman card. No one could start placing down faction cards unless a Middleman was already on the field. Maya could hold back cards people wanted placed down until she had no choice but to place them, and she enjoyed the bickering and murderous glares the royals delivered to one another. Witslaw came in a few times with an obvious disdain that they’d be playing games when they had other duties – but it was something like this that made Maya realize that perhaps she wouldn’t be completely left out of Albalon life.
These people did know how to joke. Just not in the face of looming destruction. Not when they had battles to plan and attend, or to watch from the sidelines, anxious their troops might lose. It didn’t seem quite so heroic as the ideas that the leaders led the charge, crashing into the front line of battle.
No. All the leaders directed from behind, engineering strategies, their minds valued enough to preserve.
In the meanwhile, over the next week or so, Maya gave herself plenty more opportunities to observe and consider the prince that was expected to marry her. A prince from an
other realm who turned into a humongous black stallion, with a wing span over double his body length, probably just to heft that huge form off the ground. She didn’t receive any more messages, and her battery steadily drained lower, and with it, so did her sense of escape. It became a kind of irrational superstition in her mind that if all the battery ran out, so would her chance to return home. Like the last severing of connection tying her to her former realm.
Maya committed herself to more lessons, but rarely attempted to touch her power. Yvonne found it frustrating, and let her anger be known.
“For cursed-forest’s sake, you have a potentially powerful gift, and you’re still not using it. We still need to classify it,” Yvonne said, while Artur loitered nearby, bobbing his ancient head like those little toys people kept in their cars. “Artur’s been bullying me in private, trying to get you to open up.”
“I don’t even think you can be bullied,” Maya said, releasing another arrow, watching with satisfaction as it buried into its mark – a swinging burlap sack tied to a frayed rope. Renne was away with his siblings and the general and other people helping direct the campaign, no doubt discussing new tactics and whatever else they did.
The least she could do right now was to continue training. It sure beat sitting around going mad with her own thoughts.
“True,” Yvonne said. “I’d wear their skulls if they decided to get funny with me.” This statement drew Maya’s attention to Yvonne’s bone belt, wondering how much of that was animal bones, and how much human. She didn’t dare ask. “You, Maya, are an annoying one. You could be an enchanter – they tend to be people who can empower objects. But I’m told you created arrows out of nothing. That’s conjuring abilities. Your bow also shows no sign of the magic you infused it with, so that’s a tick in the minus column for enchantment. Yet from what I understand, you need an object in order to do your magic in the first place, which is a minus for conjuring. So what in the three lands of damnation are you, girl?”
“No one special,” Maya replied, though she knew how asinine that sounded. Shooting great flesh punching arrows was pretty fucking special. She gritted her teeth, remembering again how it felt when she’d taken down all those people so effortlessly.
“No one special. You need to tell the truth, girl. You’re not just refusing your magic because you’re horrified of hurting people. I know this. I smell it.” Yvonne’s eyes became wide and mad, and she reached for her waterskin. “I’d had it with you. Let’s see how you react...”
Water siphoned out of the container, twirling around Yvonne like a liquid serpent. Sensing the threat, Maya instantly notched another arrow, pointing the bow towards Yvonne. She was dimly aware of how easy it’d been to arm herself, to poise her body to kill.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Yvonne.”
“Oh, I don’t plan for you to hurt me.” Water surged from Yvonne like miniature darts, turning icy and solid. Maya yelped, barely managing to dodge them, but still didn’t shoot.
“It’s quite simple, Maya. If you don’t attack, you will die.” Yvonne raised her hands, though she probably didn’t need to, and the icy darts behind Maya zoomed back to her, before forming a shimmering, thin veneer that resembled a sword in Yvonne’s hands. Yvonne let out a howl and charged at Maya, ready for an overhand swing.
A coldness flooded into Maya’s panic. Her bow snapped into position, and she fired. Yvonne dodged, but just before she could swing, the chill from Maya’s soul crept into her fingers, traveled along the bow, and she drew back a suddenly blue glowing string, a frosted arrow appearing out of nowhere. She fired, and Yvonne’s weapon shifted into a shield, defending her from the near point blank attack.
“That’s more like it!” Yvonne snarled, grinning, before thrusting the shield into Maya’s face. She collapsed, groaning, rubbing her nose as Yvonne towered above her, still holding the shield. “An icy arrow, this time? You are an intriguing one.”
Crawling upright, Maya trembled with rage. “I could have killed you.”
“Yes,” Yvonne agreed. “You could have.” She appeared exhilarated with herself, face practically glittering in excitement. “And that’s what makes it more fun.” She crouched down by Maya, wearing a wild smile. “You’re not scared of killing someone, Maya. You’re scared of how much you enjoy it.”
The words slammed into Maya like an icy knife working through her organs. “That’s not true!” she said, but when Yvonne said nothing, perhaps waiting for Maya to begin spitting out her excuses, Maya’s fear crystallized in her stomach, becoming solid rather than flowing everywhere through her at once.
It…
The screams of the werewolves. The thrill that thumped through her heart when she shot her first arrow and watched someone drop. First blood. The ease of how she kept putting arrows onto her bow, kept firing them, kept killing.
She could kill. Without blinking an eye, without any hesitation. In the real world, people who liked killing tended to end up in jail, dead, or enlisted, where they could legally kill. Or maybe they got recruited into special services. Ordinary civilians didn’t kill. Most of them barely interacted with bodies, keeping death at the fringe of society, even though it was technically everywhere. And then all her friends, talking about how wrong it was to kill someone, how you’d have to be insane…
“Having a nice little revelation going on in your skull?” Yvonne patted her on the shoulder, a hard smile on her lips. “Shouldn’t ever be ashamed of who you are.”
“I have to go.” Maya shrugged off Yvonne’s hand, intending to head inside, to lock herself away and sulk in her thoughts.
“Oh no you don’t. You’re not running away from this one.” Yvonne got up and in her way, hands on hips. “You don’t get to just hide in a mouse hole every time you encounter something you don’t want to deal with. No – you need to talk. Talk about what’s bothering you.”
“I don’t want to talk. Is that hard to understand?”
“It’s stupid.” Yvonne shook her head. “You’re stupid. Just talk. We won’t judge. Unless you’ve got some serious kinks, of course...”
The urge to yell at Yvonne to get out of the way, to shove her aside, hurt her so that Maya could slink away alone became almost overpowering. Somehow she kept it down. A part of her knew Yvonne to be right which was also why she wanted to deny it even stronger.
“Good,” Yvonne said, watching Maya’s expression. “Now, let’s see. Why do you have a problem with killing?”
How does she know? “I’m not supposed to.” Maya went more tight lipped when Renne appeared in her periphery, clearly closing in on her. Trying to explain to one person was madness in itself, but two?
“Pretty boy, stay away,” Yvonne snapped at Renne. “Maya and I have some talking to do.”
“I just wanted to check in...”
“You’ve checked. Go away.”
The prince hesitated. Maya didn’t look at him, feeling her cheeks burn. Eventually the prince backed off, though not without some disgruntled mutters.
“Okay, so you’re not supposed to,” Yvonne said, continuing as if there hadn’t been an interruption. “Who says you’re not supposed to?”
“Everyone. My friends. My society. It’s not something I’m meant to do.”
“But you do have people who kill in your society, right?”
“Yes, but they’re criminals.”
“What about the people who kill but aren’t criminals?”
“They’re trained.” Maya sat down again, her hands held in front of her face like a prayer. “But many of them come back with like, trauma. Stress from what they see. It’s not supposed to be easy, killing someone else.”
“But what if it was? Wouldn’t someone who could kill and not feel bad about it be better than someone who did?” Yvonne was now playing with her water, letting it bounce from hand to hand like little liquid juggling balls. “Everyone’s got a place. Right now, you’re not a criminal for doing the things you’re doing and no one in you
r world needs to know about it.”
“It’s just wrong,” Maya exploded, hands balled into fists. “How is that hard to understand?”
“Not wrong if you’re paid to do it. Not wrong if you save people by doing it. Sometimes you have to kill to protect those you love.” Yvonne sounded so sublimely confident in her words. Maya wished she had that confidence, that assurance of her place in the world.
“I disagree.” The watery objects Yvonne juggled were now distracting Maya, and she preferred looking at them than at Yvonne.
“Get over yourself, Maya. Feeling bad because you don’t feel bad – sure, I get it. But you’re wasting everyone’s time like this. Like it or not – this is who you are. If you’re going to run away from who you are, you may as well just go and kill yourself and be done with it.”
And with that, Yvonne clipped her on the head before stalking away from her, heading towards Renne and his sibling.
Maya remained sitting down for some time, processing Yvonne’s words. She didn’t feel any more enlightened when Renne came over to tell her it was nearing dinner time and that she was expected to present herself.
Dinner time was a horrible affair. Maya didn’t know why she needed to dine with all of the royals and their wards and the generals who ran the camps. It was a prestigious affair, probably meant to celebrate their conquest of Bastion – and she’d been given the clothes to dress up with by Tara. Maya wore a long, glittering blue dress, which at least had the decency to cover up her breasts so she didn’t feel like a slice of meat. It was maybe slightly too big for her, but it worked with the way it hung from her shoulders. Renne, Callum, Janus, Witslaw, and the other men all preferred their suits, ranging from gray to blue to black. About half were clean shaven, the others sporting neatly trimmed beards or a wilderness on their chins which likely could be used as a bird’s nest.
The Last Unicirim’s Bride Page 8
